14 April 2009

The Moche "King of Bling"


Among the finds: 19 golden headdresses, various pieces of jewelry, and two funerary masks, as well as skeletons of two other men and a pregnant woman.

His body was covered with a tunic and train of tiny gilded copper plates, and his face was covered with two funerary masks—a first, according to Bourget. A necklace of four-inch (ten-centimeter), disk-shaped silver rattles encircled his neck.

On his head was a gilded crown. Six more crowns and ten V-shaped headdresses called diadems were arrayed on top of his body. Still another diadem was folded in half and placed atop six metal war clubs to serve as a mat for his lifeless body...

More details at National Geographic.

2 comments:

  1. If you are in Lima, Peru, you need to check out the Lord of Sipan exhibit at the main museum. It is quite amazing, lots of very blingy gold bling.

    Also, there are lots of these mud pyramids. Check out Huaca del Sol and Huaca del Luna near Trujillo. It is really weird to walk across acres of ruins, with thousands of pottery shards everywhere (left by the looters). You want to just grab a handful as souvenirs...

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  2. Mark, re the latter I know the feeling. I've done archaeolog digs, and handling a shard or a flake from a point that was last touched thousands of years ago is a special feeling.

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