Getting ‘A-head’ in Ancestral Worship (ca. 1-750 AD)
Known best for their production of the Nazca lines in the Peruvian desert, it appears that the Nazca culture did more than just create sand art – they also created some fantastic pieces of pottery… ceramic heads, to be precise. In fact, the Nazca were rather fond of worshiping their ancestors through human sacrifice: they would decapitate their victims, modify the skull to be a ‘trophy’ head, and display this as a symbol of their worship.
The only problem is, no one is quite sure whether the victims in these sacrificial rituals were actually enemies from war or rival tribes, or if they were simply local people who offered themselves up for the sake of the group. Fortunately in 2004, an archaeologist from Texas State University discovered a Nazca burial that may help to shed some light on the dilemma.
The burial contained a rare, headless skeleton inside of a tomb-like structure, sitting cross-legged and with a ceramic ‘head-jar’ by his left elbow. By looking at the age of the skeleton and the condition of the burial – as well as taking into account the ceramic jar, painted with dual inverted faces – it has since been determined that the victim was killed and buried in a ritual of ancestral worship. At the time of death, the victim was a 20-25 year old male, and there are still visible cut marks along the neckline – meaning that not only was this person decapitated, but the cuts were made on fresh bone…ergo, it would have taken quite the effort to cut off this person’s head!
The site of the burial was at a place called La Tiza, where only several other Nazca head jars have been found before. Although they’ve typically been considered a part of high-status burial ritual, the function of the replacement head jars is also still under debate. Judging by where this man was buried and the style of death, his sacrifice was likely meant to honor the ancestors buried at this Nazca cemetery – in effect, he was killed in order to appease the ancestral spirits and ensure the fruitful continuation of the community.
Since the ceramic jar was painted with two images of a human face – which, when looked at directly, one is right side up and the other upside-down – the jar was probably meant to serve as a ‘substitute’ for the victim’s decapitated head! Based on other Nazca images in the area, it is thought that the Nazca believed a person needed a head in order to enter into the afterlife – so naturally, a replacement head would have been necessary, especially for a sacrificial victim! Of course, this generous treatment leads one to think that perhaps the ritually killed individual was a local community member after all…or, there is always an alternative possibility that the man was killed in a battle and had his body retrieved by family members who simply chose to bury him here – however, that doesn’t make quite as interesting a story.
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