This striking copper funerary mask from the Mochica (Moche) culture of Loma Negra, Piura, Peru   dates between 500 BC and 500 AD.

This ornament was crafted from a larger sheet of gilded copper that was cut and shaped into the front half of a monkey’s head. Its teeth and eyes were inlaid with shell, while the pupils were set with stone. Each ear contains paired holes that once held two thin gilded wires, each ending in a small gilded pendant. Minute traces of feathers—likely originating from a nearby feathered textile buried alongside the object—are embedded within the surface corrosion. The piece may once have formed the front portion of a bead, the back now missing, or it may originally have been affixed to a support such as a ceremonial banner.

The Moche (or Mochica) flourished on Peru’s North Coast between 200 and 850 CE, long before the rise of the Inca (Castillo, 2017). Over the span of some seven centuries, they developed prosperous regional centers extending from the Nepeña River Valley in the south to areas possibly as far north as the Piura River, near the modern Ecuadorian border. Through sophisticated irrigation systems, they transformed coastal deserts into fertile agricultural lands and made extensive use of the rich maritime resources provided by the Pacific’s Humboldt Current. Although the Moche never formed a single centralized state, they shared a number of unifying cultural features, including distinctive religious traditions (Donnan, 2010).

This object is said to have been found at a site known as Loma Negra, a northern outpost of Moche cultural influence. Metal objects from Loma Negra display iconographic parallels with ceramics and metalwork recovered from major Moche centers farther south, such as Ucupe (Bourget, 2014). The precise nature of the relationship between Loma Negra and the Moche cultural “heartland,” however, remains an active subject of scholarly discussion (Kaulicke, 2006).