The Social Life of Plants: Botanical Representations in Moche Art

The Moche were semi-autonomous communities who thrived in the ten fertile riverine valleys of Peru’s northern coast between the late fourth and ninth centuries CE. Phase IV (c. 590–700 CE) Southern Moche ceramics feature intricate fine line visual narrative scenes with many multivalent symbols and motifs. This dissertation intends to understand why plants begin to play a more significant role in the Moche iconographic corpus in this period. I explore the interests of elites, the ecological web interweaving image and environment, and species identification. The local flora was affected on one hand by naturally occurring changes in weather and environment that are unique to the coast and, on the other, by elite interventions in the natural world aimed at prosperity and legitimization. The rhythmic flows of water availability and crop bounty alongside extraordinary environmental phenomena resulting from the unique geographical landscape produced a fascinating and complicated relationship between humans and their natural environment.