Vicús culture

The Vicús culture ( named after a small village in the north of Peru, about 40 km west of Piura ), belonged to an archaeologically dated nor bad period at approximately the 5th century BC to the 6th century AD. It belongs to the so-called classical pre-Columbian cultures, whose center is obviously the high valleys Piuras were, but probably spread to the north, up to the present southern Ecuador, and south to the Lambayeque valley.

Vicús Art

The wealth and diversity of Vicús Art, which was only discovered during the looting of hundreds of graves around 1960, have two different origins out of a possibly from Ecuador, the other locally. In fact, there are in the Vicús ceramic two traditional styles that, although both represent the same concept funeral, are completely different.

• The one Vicús - Vicús, similar to the Ecuadorian style, stands out with unpolished ceramic, or the absence of size ratios in the figure of humans or animals, the contempt of natural forms, often by simple forms and elaboration: It is predominantly a rough design of humans or animals, adorned with smoke, which is brought to bear with white paint.

• The other, Vicús - Moche, shows a design and shapes that seem to come directly from the Mochica culture. After the Peruvian archaeologist Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, the Mochica were socially and politically advanced and would subject the people of Vicús and can impose on them their artistic style. The Vicús region was for centuries an important place of exchange between northern Peru and southern Ecuador, and even southern Colombia. This diverse culture is characterized in metallurgy, eg in the processing of copper, arsenic bronze and gold-copper compounds, where innumerable forms have been processed in the applied techniques and forms and by the influence of different meridional or north styles.