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By Aristos Georgiou
Science and Health Reporter
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A team of archaeologists and conservators has uncovered a spectacular "throne room" in Peru that appears to have been occupied by a powerful female leader.
The pillared room was revealed at the site of Pañamarca in the Nepeña Valley on the country's northern coast, the "Archaeological Landscapes of Pañamarca" research project announced.
Pañamarca is the southernmost monumental center of the Moche culture, a pre-Hispanic society that inhabited the coastal valleys of northern Peru between around 350 AD and 850 AD. The society is renowned for its rich elite tombs, striking architecture and artwork.
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Built atop a granite hill in the lower Nepeña Valley, Pañamarca consists of an imposing stepped adobe platform, two lower adobe platforms, a large walled adobe plaza and several other structures. Adobe is a building material made from earth and organic materials.
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One of the site's notable features is the colorful wall paintings situated within the plaza and platforms. These paintings depict priests and warriors in processions, battles between supernatural beings and scenes of ceremonial activities, among other works.
However, the "throne room" that seemingly belonged to a queen had never previously been discovered at the site—not to mention anywhere else in ancient Peru—according to the research project.
In July this year, researchers found an adobe throne in a room whose walls and pillars depict four different scenes of a powerful woman. In one, the woman is receiving visitors in procession, while in another, she is seated on a throne. She is even depicted in paintings on the interior surfaces of the throne itself.
The room—dubbed the Sala del Imaginario Moche ("Hall of the Moche Imaginary")—was initially discovered last year, but had not been fully excavated.
"This year our team succeeded in bringing to light stunning discoveries of painted architecture and related archaeological stories... at the ancient Moche center of Pañamarca, in north-coastal Peru. [The findings] are allowing us to write more nuanced accounts of social life and artistic practice in South America nearly a millennium before the Spanish colonial era," Lisa Trever, an associate professor of pre-Columbian art history and archaeology at Columbia University, told Newsweek.
"We had already seen parts of a pillared hall, which we now understand to have been a throne room, having arrived in our excavation at the level of the painted earthen throne in July, 2024."
The powerful woman depicted in the "throne room" appears to be associated with the crescent moon, the sea and its creatures, and the arts of spinning and weaving.
The paintings do not clearly indicate whether the powerful woman depicted in the artworks was real or a mythical figure. It is possible the depictions could represent a priestess, goddess or queen.
But physical evidence from the throne, including the erosion of its back and the recovery of greenstone beads, fine threads and even human hair, indicates that it was occupied by a real person. According to the researchers, much of the available evidence and knowledge of the Moche culture indicates that this individual could have been a powerful female leader of Pañamarca who lived in the 7th century.
'A Queen or Leader'
"Some people think the woman is the Goddess of the Moon. Others say she is a priestess. Based on the findings of tombs of real women who held great power at other Moche places like San José de Moro, who were buried with many of the same attributes including her distinctive plume-shaped crown, it is also possible to interpret her as a queen or leader," Trever said.
"Many scholars see a clear distinction between human and supernatural figures in Moche art, based on the presence of fangs or the braids that seem to transform into serpents. But we know that many indigenous intellectual traditions did not separate the natural from the 'supernatural'—rather, beings were more or less imbued with living energy, along a kind of spectrum. This may be one of several Western impositions on the ancient Moche images. Could it not be that artists portrayed a powerful living woman (or man) with unusual attributes to emphasize how their power exceeded the ordinary?"
Trever pointed to several lines of evidence to support the view that the throne room was used by a powerful female Moche leader.
"To the right hand side of the throne, there is a pillar painted with a scene of a crowned woman seated on a throne that has the same three-stepped form as the actual painted earthen throne," Trever said. "At the foot of the throne we found a semi-circular basin that contained more beads and thread, as well as the remains of food—maize, yuca, potato and squash.
"On the throne itself we found evidence of use—erosion from the presence of someone who once sat there—as well as bits of thread and beads from their clothing. It is entirely possible that this throne was used by other people as well, but the close correspondence between the painting of the enthroned woman and the actual throne suggests to us that it is more likely that it was made for an important woman."
According to Trever, the latest findings at Pañamarca are allowing us to paint a picture of the ancient Moche world in more detail.
"Pañamarca continues to surprise us not only because of the inexhaustible creativity of its painters, but also because their works are changing our expectations about gender roles in the ancient Moche world," Trever said.
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Update 11/15/24, 6:43 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Lisa Trever.
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