An octopus headdress belongs to an impressive Moche metalworking tradition.
Location Country: Peru
Caral's plan and some of its components, including pyramidal structures and residence of the elite, show clear evidence of ceremonial functions, signifying a powerful religious ideology.
Caral
The planning of this huge city, the largest in pre-Columbian America, reflects a strict political and social strategy
Chan Chan
Get to know the richest burial site in the Western hemisphere.
The Moche Royal Tombs of Sipán
The Nasca were interested in issues of design and abstraction centuries before the rise of abstract art in the twentieth century.
Nasca Art: Sacred Linearity and Bold Designs
“For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it / But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Luis de Riaño and indigenous collaborators, The ...
Sinners depicted along the lower register receive an array of bodily tortures; the souls in heaven, by contrast, surround the ascended Christ in an orderly formation.
Diego Quispe Tito, Last Judgment, 1675
Bernardo Bitti's painting at the Church of San Pedro in Lima shows that the Renaissance was a global event.
Bernardo Bitti, Coronation of the Virgin
Stereotypical folkloric scenes were widely circulated, shaping perceptions of Latin America at home and abroad.
Costumbrismo
These images carved into the desert floor cannot be truly appreciated from the ground—so who were they made for?
Nasca Geoglyphs
Corpus Christi processions celebrate Christ as victor and allude to the triumph of Christianity over paganism.
Parish of San Sebastián, Procession of Corpus ...
The Inka emperor hosted feasts, performed religious ceremonies, and ruled his empire from this remote citadel.
Machu Picchu
It has been argued that Cusco was laid out in the shape of a puma, symbolizing Inka might.
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