Bottle, Audiencias with Figures 14th–15th century Chimú This bottle is a unique example of an architectural vessel in silver from ancient Peru. Echoing the ancient stirrup-spout form first seen in Cupisnique ceramics perhaps two thousand years earlier, the body of the vessel is in the form of two audiencias, a type of architectural structure known from Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimú Empire. This great Andean desert city flourished on Peru’s North Coast, near what is now the modern city of Trujillo in the Moche Valley, for some five hundred years before the Chimú were conquered by the Inca

Bottle, Audiencias with Figures 14th–15th century Chimú This bottle is a unique example of an architectural vessel in silver from ancient Peru. Echoing the ancient stirrup-spout form first seen in Cupisnique ceramics perhaps two thousand years earlier, the body of the vessel is in the form of two audiencias, a type of architectural structure known from Chan Chan, the capital of the Chimú Empire. This great Andean desert city flourished on Peru’s North Coast, near what is now the modern city of Trujillo in the Moche Valley, for some five hundred years before the Chimú were conquered by the Incas around 1470 The core of the city was composed of ten monumental mud-brick compounds thought to be the palaces of the Chimú rulers. Most likely built sequentially by succeeding rulers, the compounds combined administrative, ceremonial, and domestic functions, but they ultimately became the funerary monuments of rulers, their descendants, and their retainers. This bottle, made of pieces of silver sheet that were cut, embossed, and soldered together to create a vessel with a body in the shape of an architectural platform with figures, may have been meant to evoke an area within the Chan Chan palaces. A central figure with a conical headdress and large ear ornaments is shown seated within a niche-like space, flanked by two figures seated in front of him, one wearing a similar conical headdress and ear ornaments, and the other bearing what may be a sack over his shoulders. The scene is repeated on the opposite side of the vessel. The walls of the structure are decorated in the style of the Chan Chan palaces and other nearby structures such as Huaca el Dragón, with reliefs depicting figures with crescent headdresses and marine birds. The principal individuals are seated on throne-like audiencias—U-shaped structures that were often located adjacent to storage facilities. Whether the figures with sacks over their shoulders were intended to represent long-distance trad

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