Nazca Culture

The Nazca culture (also Nasca) was the archaeological culture that flourished from c. 100 BC to 800 AD beside the arid, southern coast of Peru in the river valleys of the Rio Grande de Nazca drainage and the Ica Valley. Having been heavily influenced by the preceding Paracas culture, which was known for extremely complex textiles, the Nazca produced an array of crafts and technologies such as ceramics, textiles, and geoglyphs—specifically the Nazca Lines. They also built an impressive system of underground aqueducts, known as puquios, that still function today. The Nazca Province in the Ica Region was named for this people.

The Nazca culture is characterized by its beautiful polychrome pottery, painted with at least 15 distinct colors. The Nazca are also known for their technically complex textiles. The textiles were most likely woven by women at habitation sites from spun cotton and wool. The textiles would have been made using a backstrap loom. This is similar to the way textiles are made in the region today.

The geoglyphs of Nazca or "Nazca Lines" are a series of geometric shapes, miles of lines, and large drawings of animal figures (some as large as a football field) constructed on the desert floor in the Nazca region.

Trephination was a primitive skull surgery used by the Nazca that relieved pressure on the brain from battle wounds or for ritual purposes. It entails the removal of one or more sections of bone from the skull (while the person is still alive). Evidence of trephination has been seen through the analysis of excavated skulls. Some of the skulls show signs of healing, evidence that some individuals who underwent the procedure had survived.

Nazca subsistence was based largely on agriculture. Iconography on ceramics and excavated remains indicate that the Nazca people had a varied diet, composed of maize, squash, sweet potato, manioc and achira, and a small trace of various fish. They also used several non-food crops, such as cotton for textiles, coca, San Pedro cactus, and gourds. The latter were decorated to illustrate activities in daily life. The evidence of coca in society can be seen through remains but also through ceramics. This is the same for the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus, which has been illustrated in ceremonies on several polychrome pots and bowls. In terms of animal resources, the Nazca made sacrifices of llamas and guinea pigs at Cahuachi. Llamas were also commonly exploited as pack animals, for their wool, and as a source of meat.

The Nazca collected “trophy heads.” No one is sure if the heads were trophies of war or objects of ritual. The term “trophy head” was coined by the archaeologist Max Uhle, who considered the depiction of severed heads in ancient Peruvian art to correspond to trophies of warfare. Researchers noted that all the heads had one modification in common- a hole in the forehead through which a rope could be affixed, presumably so that the severed head can be displayed or carried. This added to the consensus that these were trophy heads. - R. Parker

Nazca Pottery

"The pottery of the Nazca civilization, which flourished in ancient Peru between 200 BCE and 600 CE, is amongst the most distinctive art produced by any civilization from antiquity. Endlessly inventive both in form and in its use of strong colours and bold decorative designs, the ceramic wares of the Nazca are instantly recognisable. This ease of identification is no doubt because, in a culture without writing, designs on pottery vessels were an important means of communicating shared ideas and religious practices. Not simply for everyday use, then, the Nazca created vessels for ritual use, burialofferings, and pure decoration. Nazca potters, although employing very simple techniques, were technically accomplished and their ceramics display the widest colour range found in any ancient Americas pottery.

Forms

Nazca pottery, made where the pottery wheel was unknown, was made by hand, mostly by the method of coiling where a tube of clay was spiralled around a base to build up the vessel. Potters did use a turntable but this was for manual slow-turning during the decoration process. The sides of the vessel - both inside and out - were then thinned and smoothed by hand or using a flat stone as desired. Vessels were thin-walled and could take on a wide variety of shapes. Distinctive forms include the double-spouted containers with a single handle and generally bulbous vessels without a flat bottom or base. Bowls, beakers, plain jars, and effigy jars were also common. There were vessels in the shape of human heads too, no doubt inspired by the Nazca practice of taking trophy-heads following battles. The three-dimensional stepped fret shape is unique to the Nazca. Besides vessels, ceramic effigy figures, drums, panpipes, and masks were also produced, typically for burial with the dead.

Decorative Designs

Influenced by the earlier Paracas culture designs, Nazca pottery vessels were decorated with a slip (before firing) to produce a wide array of vividly rendered patterns. Specific real people and events are never represented in Nazca art. Rather, vessels are decorated with an endless variety of unspecific images of gods, people (abstract, more women than men, and most often just faces), shamanic imagery in various anthropomorphic transformational stages, crustaceans, killer whales, condors and other predatory birds, monkeys, lizards, insects, trophy heads, decapitated victims, and mythical transformational creatures, especially felines which are highly stylized but almost always recognisable via their whiskered mouths. Staring eyes - achieved by painting the iris all around the pupil in stark white – are another typical Andean feature which most scholars believe depicts a drug-induced trance state. Sometimes the naval on figures is represented as an eye and may also represent a shamanic blending of the senses. In earlier vessels plants and fruit were another popular subject and indicate their importance to this agricultural society.

The Nazca did not simply follow the traditions of their predecessors, though, as they eventually created their own unique style and designs evolved from naturalistic to highly ornamented and then, in its final stages, to highly abstract forms and a sort of artist’s short-hand. Colours are bold and made more striking via thick black outlines. Often the design covers the entire vessel producing a wrap-around three-dimensional effect, even a narrative, for example, with battle scenes. Designs might also exploit the contours of the vessel, for example, a nose on a protruding part. The lower body of figures is rarely presented and usually blends with the lower, rounded, form of the vessel itself. Designs can even overlap each other to create the illusion of space and depth.

Maroon, light purple, and blue-grey were a favourite choice of colours but a very wide range was used, more, in fact, than in any other ancient Andean culture. Up to 12 colours were made from mixing water with mineral pigments such as manganese for black and iron oxide for reds. Backgrounds were usually in white, brown, red, or black. Colours were rarely used to depict objects as they appeared in reality but, rather, were used according to a set of artistic conventions. Outlining figures and colour areas with a black line which never varies in thickness is another feature and another example of the Nazca delight in linear design. After firing a final polishing gave the colours a brilliant glossy shine.

Maroon, light purple, and blue-grey were a favourite choice of colours but a very wide range was used, more, in fact, than in any other ancient Andean culture. Up to 12 colours were made from mixing water with mineral pigments such as manganese for black and iron oxide for reds. Backgrounds were usually in white, brown, red, or black. Colours were rarely used to depict objects as they appeared in reality but, rather, were used according to a set of artistic conventions. Outlining figures and colour areas with a black line which never varies in thickness is another feature and another example of the Nazca delight in linear design. After firing a final polishing gave the colours a brilliant glossy shine."

https://www.ancient.eu/article/883/nazca-pottery/

-L.Crockett