Sipán

In Sipán, situated in the river valley of Lambayeque on the north coast of Peru, a number of the most important archaeological findings of the last century were made at the turn of the 1980´s and 1990´s. It was a question of smallish Moche burials done inside an adobe plain. The most famous of them is the tomb of the Lord of Sipán radiocarbon dated to circa 290 A.D., which was supplied with astonishingly rich gifts. The deceased was wrapped in gilt and copper-decorated textiles and buried with, among other things, three pairs of golden ear rings, several necklaces of precious metal, brooches made of pearls, golden ornaments covering the face and one pair of sceptres plus back covers. The grave yield of the Lord of Sipán points to him having been a warrior priest, who, in the motifs of the Moche ceramics, often appear as overseers of sacrificial ceremonies. The luxurious contents of the coffin is evidence of the indisputably high status of such men of power.

In addition to the Lord of Sipán, two men, three young women and about a ten-year-old child had been lowered into the sepulchre. In its totality, the amount of human beings in the tomb rises to nine, since a legless warrior had been buried on top of the rafters of the actual tomb and a fourth woman had been crammed into a niche on the upper part of the ceiling. Besides human escorts, also a dog and two llama sacrifices had been lowered into the luxurious tomb of the Lord of Sipán.

The tomb of the Lord of Sipán is the best-known of the burials of the Sipán adobe terrace, but not the only one. The terrace was built c. 100-300 A.D. The deep-situated tomb of the Lord of Sipán is one of the oldest of the findings. Several metres above it there is, among other things, a gorgeous tomb of a lower priest. Buried in the first century A.D., the man had been accompanied by only a young woman and a llama in his crude ditch , but his jewellery and metal artefacts were even richer than the gifts of the Lord of Sipán.

Reproduction of the Lord of Sipán, wearing his most important emblems. The objects on the reproduction correspond to those discovered in the tomb of the Lord of Sipán. © Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú, Lima, Peru

Three pairs of magnificent mosaic decorated earplugs were found in the tomb of the Lord of Sipán as well. One is decorated with a three-dimensional elite person and the two other with a duck and a deer. © Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú, Lima, Peru

A pectoral with a ray-shaped pattern consisting of thousands of shell beads was one of the eleven necklaces found in the tomb of the Lord of Sipán. © Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú, Lima, Peru

Standard or flag, with a man holding up his hands as its central figure, consisting of gold-plated copper parts on a cotton background had been laid on the chest of the Lord of Sipán. © Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú, Lima, Peru