Figure B (the Bird Priest) and Figure C (the Priestess) are also frequently identified personages in the various versions of the Sacrifice Ceremony.
The Bird Priest (Figure B) is always part bird and part human, and he wears a conical helmet with a crescent shaped ornament at its peak, or a headdress with an owl at its center. Tomb 2 at Sipán contained an individual who may have been a Bird Priest in the Moche passion play. Evidence supporting the identification of the individual in Tomb 2 as the Bird Priest included a headdress ornament of gilded copper in the shape of an owl with large extended wings, and a backflap similar to that worn by the Bird Priest in the drawings. However, additional artifacts associated with the burial of this man were fierce felines and octopi, not generally associated wtih the Bird Priest.
The Priestess (Figure C) always wears a dress-like garment and a headdress with two prominent plumes. Her hairstyle is wrapped braids that hang down over her chest and end in serpent heads or fox heads. She is occasionally illustrated as sitting in a reed boat, sometimes holding a Sacrifice Ceremony goblet. She occasionally is illustrated with a three-pronged club. Two burials at the Moche site of San José de Moro and one at the El Brujo Complex were of women buried in room-sized burial chambers with two copper plumes nearly identical to the headdress illustrated here. These are generally interpreted as Priestesses by Moche scholars.
Evidence suggests that these individuals were not specifically "the" Bird Priest or "the" Priestess, but rather people who played those roles in a recurring religious/political event.
The Bird Priest (Figure B) is always part bird and part human, and he wears a conical helmet with a crescent shaped ornament at its peak, or a headdress with an owl at its center. Tomb 2 at Sipán contained an individual who may have been a Bird Priest in the Moche passion play. Evidence supporting the identification of the individual in Tomb 2 as the Bird Priest included a headdress ornament of gilded copper in the shape of an owl with large extended wings, and a backflap similar to that worn by the Bird Priest in the drawings. However, additional artifacts associated with the burial of this man were fierce felines and octopi, not generally associated wtih the Bird Priest.
The Priestess (Figure C) always wears a dress-like garment and a headdress with two prominent plumes. Her hairstyle is wrapped braids that hang down over her chest and end in serpent heads or fox heads. She is occasionally illustrated as sitting in a reed boat, sometimes holding a Sacrifice Ceremony goblet. She occasionally is illustrated with a three-pronged club. Two burials at the Moche site of San José de Moro and one at the El Brujo Complex were of women buried in room-sized burial chambers with two copper plumes nearly identical to the headdress illustrated here. These are generally interpreted as Priestesses by Moche scholars.
Evidence suggests that these individuals were not specifically "the" Bird Priest or "the" Priestess, but rather people who played those roles in a recurring religious/political event.
Sources
Alva, Walter. 2001 The Royal tombs of Sipán: Art and Power in Moche Society. pp. 223-245 in Pillsbury, Joanne (ed), Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Alva, Walter and Christopher B. Donnan. 1993. Royal Tombs of Sipán. Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles.
Castillo, Luis Jaime. 2001. The last of the Mochicas: A view from the Jequetepeque Valley. pp. 307-332 in Pillsbury, Joanne (ed), Moche Art and Archaeology in Ancient Peru. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Donnan, Christopher. mss. Moche state religion: A unifying force in Moche political organization.
