Earflare with Multifigure Scene 1350–1470 Chimú Ear ornaments were an important component of courtly regalia in the ancient Andes from at least the first millennium to the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Some of the most spectacular examples in the late pre-Hispanic period were made at Chan Chan, capital of the Chimú Empire, in the Moche Valley on Peru’s North Coast. This pair of earspools features nearly the same composition on each ornament. The principal figure, likely a depiction of political leader known as a cacique or lord in sixteenth-century Spanish texts,

Earflare with Multifigure Scene 1350–1470 Chimú Ear ornaments were an important component of courtly regalia in the ancient Andes from at least the first millennium to the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Some of the most spectacular examples in the late pre-Hispanic period were made at Chan Chan, capital of the Chimú Empire, in the Moche Valley on Peru’s North Coast. This pair of earspools features nearly the same composition on each ornament. The principal figure, likely a depiction of political leader known as a cacique or lord in sixteenth-century Spanish texts, wears a large crescent headdress and stands on a litter (a type of conveyance used to carry an individual, or individuals), born aloft by two smaller-scale figures with similar, but smaller headdresses. The lord himself wears large round ear ornaments that have a central boss and decorated borders. His tunic—the primary male garment in the late prehispanic Andes, worn over a loincloth—is embellished with a fringe or patterned border. He holds a beaker in one hand and a fan in the other. A fourth figure, still smaller in scale, is shown below the litter, immediately underneath the lord’s complex headdress consists of a stepped element surmounted by an impressive, two-tiered crest representing feathers, echoing the crescent-shaped fan in his hand, which was also likely composed of feathers. A similar headdress was found archaeologically at Chan Chan in the early twentieth century, and the type has also been depicted on other works in metal, such as a beaker now in the collections of the Denver Art Museum (accession number ; see Pillsbury, Potts, and Richter 2017, cat. no. 57). All of the components of the lord’s representation—his larger scale and central position on a litter, but also the regalia he wears and carries—speak to his power and importance. Litters and beakers were closely associated with leadership on the North Coast (see, for exam

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