‘Unprecedented’ 1,300-year-old murals shed light on life in ancient Peru. Take a look

Resting atop a rocky outcrop in Peru’s Nepeña Valley is Pañamarca: an architectural trove built between 550 and 800 C.E. that now holds countless remnants of the Moche people.

For decades, archaeologists and researchers have taken an interest in uncovering Pañamarca’s secrets, and now, they are making progress and sharing their findings.

The Archaeological Research Project (PIA) “Paisajes Arqueológicos de Pañamarca” was launched by a team of archaeologists from around the world in 2018, according to a March 7 news release from the team. Although the team estimates it has uncovered less than 10% of the site’s extensive paintings, it says its findings are already granting greater insight into the ancient Moche civilization.

‘Unprecedented’ findings

The team focused its excavations on the site’s pillared hall — a continuation of work that began in 2010 — and uncovered paintings dating to some time between 650-700 C.E., Lisa Trever, a Lisa and Bernard Selz associate professor of pre-Columbian art history and archaeology at Columbia University, told McClatchy News.

The recent project revealed a new portion of a painting that was first discovered in the hall in 2010, the team said in a presentation of its findings. The new finding depicts three figures.

“One wearing an elaborate headdress and carrying an unusual mace decorated with a person with arms raised beneath a serpent-arc; a second figure bearing a bag; and a third figure carrying a stirrup-spout bottle in the shape of a hybrid animal” the researchers said.

There are several other objects between the three figures and part of another headdress is visible, according to the archaeologists.

The team said they also made a more “unprecedented” discovery: a two-faced man.

The mural depicts a figure with two faces holding a “stiff and motionless” feather fan. Beneath the figure is a second depiction of the man, but his feather fan is bending with his movement, the team said.

The figure is not comparable to any other Moche art, according to the archaeologists. It may be an attempt at showing a person in two different moments though.

“There is nothing quite like this in South American archaeology,” Trever told Live Science. “The artists may have been experimenting with how to show movement, and two narrative moments at once.”