Walls with Friezes II

The main figure portrays a face with prominent cheekbones, painted red; its eyes are almost round and are painted white with black irises. The cheeks are not very defined and blend in with its broad nose. The nose is almost aquiline and painted yellow. The mouth is rectangular with rounded edges and sports large crossed fangs at either end. The teeth are painted white and outlined in black. The upper lip is well defined and painted yellow. The chin is somewhat concave and wide, which lends the face its square shape. From the lower part of the chin and from the top of the head emerge appendices in the shape of volutes, painted black. The figure also wears a set of double earspools, painted yellow.

The smaller triangles located between each rhomboid have interior bands in relief painted red and separated from the base line by some 6 centimeters in bass relief painted white. Inside these smaller upper and lower triangles is a humanlike figure similar to the one in the rhomboids but whose appendices end in heads of marine birds emerging from either side of blue-colored cheeks. The background color of the triangle is white, while the figures are painted in several colors (red, yellow, white, blue and black). This decorated wall ends in a baseboard.

Based on comparisons with a variety of images in Moche art, the design of the frontal humanlike face in the Huaca de la Luna friezes is very similar to the «Winged Decapitator» from Vicús in Piura and from Sipán in Lambayeque. It also recalls the «Demon with the Prominent Eyebrows» from Piura. Thus, it is reasonable to surmise that this oft-repeated image found on the reliefs and murals at Huaca de la Luna corresponds to an abbreviated version of the «Demon with the Prominent Eyebrows,» whose stance, in general, recalls that of the «Winged Decapitator.»

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