Huaco

Culture Nazca: Huaco polícromo ictiforme.

Wari Culture Anthropomorphic vessel.

A huaco is a ceramic piece with a delicate workmanship and notable aesthetic characteristics produced by a Peruvian pre-Hispanic culture from the central Andes or from the coast of this country.

Since the time of the Hispanic presence, this kind of pieces have been found in pre-Columbian sites such as temples, tombs and burials, as well as in other kinds of ruins. These locations, especially if they are supposed to have a sacred meaning, receive the generic name of huaca (from the native voice waqa), from which it is likely that the huacos took their name..

Great workers of huacos

The huari (wari) were some of the best workers of huacos, together with the Nazcas and the Mochicas, who went down in history, among others, for their notable works in ceramics, but the Incas, who absorbed all cultures Existing at the time of its expansion, they were also worked on, and, in general, all the cultures that existed in Peru before the 16th century.

Varieties of styles and colors

The bridge handle is characteristic of some cultures, just as in other cultures there are many colors, in others there are only one or two, black, opaque red and others.

Variety of ceramic art

Pre-Inca and Inca Empire ceramic production adopted all kinds of shapes, styles, and qualities. The term huaco is restricted, however, to specimens not reserved for daily use but rather for sumptuary or ritual use.

It is normally associated with pieces with notable plastic characteristics: sculptural huacos representing complex stylized volumes and even cultural scenes, buildings, naturalistic volumes such as portrait huacos, representing human faces, or parts of the body as ex-votos, erotic, instruments work, various fruits and food, animals, etc.

When the pieces are not sculptural ceramics, the huacos are characterized by their pictorial richness. Thus we have all kinds of vessels and containers covered with variegated polychrome motifs, normally zoomorphic or anthropomorphic, mythological, erotic representations, etc. Mochica bicolor ceramics are characterized by painted ceramics detailing complex scenes at a narrative level.

In both cases, the huaco is associated with plastic complexity (in its volume or in its decoration), unusual use and consideration as a very diminished or testimonial container, which also has to do with its physical dimensions.

In this way, the slender Inca containers known as aríbalos, even having opulently made specimens, are not usually considered huacos since their utilitarian character is too accentuated.