Bottle, Warriors 3rd–5th century Moche This ceramic vessel depicts four warriors running over an undulating line that may represent hills. Created by artists of Peru’s Moche culture, the style of painting is called “fineline,” so named for the detailed compositions delicately painted in red slip (a suspension of clay and/or other colorants in water) on a white ground. Each warrior wears a helmet surmounted by a crescent-shaped finial and tied under the chin (see Sawyer, 1966: 42–23, for a rollout drawing of the painting on the vessel). The crescents likely represent actual silver or gold ornam

Bottle, Warriors 3rd–5th century Moche This ceramic vessel depicts four warriors running over an undulating line that may represent hills. Created by artists of Peru’s Moche culture, the style of painting is called “fineline,” so named for the detailed compositions delicately painted in red slip (a suspension of clay and/or other colorants in water) on a white ground. Each warrior wears a helmet surmounted by a crescent-shaped finial and tied under the chin (see Sawyer, 1966: 42–23, for a rollout drawing of the painting on the vessel). The crescents likely represent actual silver or gold ornaments; one pair of combatants may sport bimetallic crescents. Two of the helmets have feathers projecting from the back. The decorations on three of the helmets mirror the pattern on the wearers’ cinched tunics. The belts are decorated with a teardrop-shaped motif representing an ulluchu fruit (McClelland, 2008). The warriors without bimetallic helmet crescents wear bimetallic back flaps (a type of body armor suspended from the waist at the back), while the other warriors have smaller elements hanging from the waist at the back. All four warriors carry maces and shields, but the individuals without back flaps carry spears or darts. Only the warriors without back flaps wear nose ornaments. The clear demarcation of dress and regalia between the pairs may indicate that the artist intended to represent two distinct ranks or types of warriors. The artist further embellished the vessel by painting triangular forms on the lower arms of the spout and wavy lines at the attachment points. The stirrup-spout vessel—the shape of the spout recalls the stirrup on a horse's saddle—was a much favored form on Peru's northern coast for about 2,500 years. Although the importance and symbolism of this distinctive shape is still puzzling to scholars, it has been suggested that the double-branch/single-spout configuration may have prevented evaporation of liquids, and/or that it was co

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