The Moche Tapa dura - 1997

In the first part of the book the author examines the integral relationship between the Moche people and their physical world, their economy, and everyday life at all levels of society. He describes the symbols of religion and myth and shows how these were vital participants in rituals, often involving human sacrifice, that served to maintain balance with the unpredictable forces of nature while at the same time reinforcing the power of the rulers.

In the second part of the book the author investigates the origins of Moche society in the first two millennia BC, the emergence of Moche society and the evolution of its cultural and political pre-eminence. The picture that emerges is of a brilliant manifestation of Andean culture within whose society diversity and tension were as evident as unity and whose development and decline were shaped by the attributes of its own peculiar history and by the region in which it flourished.

This vivid evocation of an ancient civilization is both enlivened and deepened by the author's sympathetic understanding of customs, rituals and myths which to modern eyes may seem both strange and terrible. It will be widely welcomed by scholars and students of South American archaeology and history, and by those curious to know more about a civilization that for thirteen centuries was largely forgotten.