In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Four»ApproachestotheInterpretation ofNascaIconography Previous฀Attempts฀at฀Interpretation Among the first attempts to interpret Nasca iconography was a short article by the British archaeologist Thomas Joyce published in the journal Man (Joyce 1913b). Using a collection of thirty-four Nasca vessels acquired by the British Museum, Joyce argued that the mythical creatures represented on them could be deciphered as humans dressed in costumes which represented the totemic clan-ancestor in animal form (ibid.: 113). The basis for this interpretation appears to have been Joyce’s familiarity with chroniclers such as Garcilaso de la Vega (whom he quotes), who described the use of animal costumes by the Inca in their rituals to portray the ancestors of their ayllus. Using ethnographic analogy, Joyce suggested that the depictions on Nasca vessels could be interpreted in a similar manner. He was the first to use the terms “mouth-mask,” “tunic,” and “cloak” in describing the apparel worn by these figures. In 1914 Edward K. Putnam described and illustrated a collection of ninety-four Nasca vessels purchased in 1911 by C. A. Ficke, then president of the Davenport Academy of Sciences. This was part of a larger collection of over four hundred Peruvian specimens brought back to Iowa from Peru by Ficke. Putnam, who cites Joyce’s article and is familiar with his interpretations, attempts little analysis of his own, with a few exceptions. He classifies the themes present on the Davenport Nasca collection into several categories: animal figures (he also lumps in other naturalistic forms such as birds, plants, and fish); figure pots (head jars, effigy forms); rows of faces; human monster figures (six variations , labeled A through F); and miscellaneous forms (Putnam 1914). Putnam’s taxonomy is limited by the size of the sample and by his own views on the nature of the art. Like Joyce, he argues that many of his Human Monster Figures “may be nothing more than men in the dress of a bird, or of a serpent, or a centipede, or a scorpion, or some other animal ” (ibid.: 26), but he suggests that “others might perhaps be called animals with men’s heads” (ibid.). In an attempt to discover a more empirical method for understanding Nasca iconography, some scholars turned to archaeological evidence to aid in the identification of objects seen in the art. Julio C. Tello, considered by his compatriots to be the “father of Peruvian archaeology,” was responsible for the excavation of large quantities of Nasca pottery that became part of the collections of the Museo Nacional in Lima. Tello was among the first to excavate mummified Nasca trophy heads and to recognize their ritual uses (Tello 1917, 1918). He was able to identify representations of trophy heads on Nasca pottery by their distinctive characteristics: the attachment of carrying ropes through a hole bored in the forehead and lips pinned shut with hua­ rango thorns—features that he had seen on archaeological specimens and now saw clearly displayed on the painted pottery. He also was one of the first to use ethnographic 0฀ «฀ approaches฀to฀interpretation analogy in his interpretation, comparing trophy heads to contemporary Jívaro shrunken heads. Tello’s pioneering work paved the way for a more empirical interpretation of the iconography. The Peruvian historian Horacio H. Urteaga (1919a), despite his lack of training in archaeology, wrote an interpretive article on Nasca iconography in an obscure Lima publication. He viewed the creatures painted on the Nasca vessels as anthropomorphic representations of a religious nature—fetishes, idols, or totems (Urteaga 1919a: 109–110). Most of his examples were taken from vessels in the Museo Prado in Lima, the private museum of Javier Prado, the rector of San Marcos University. He recognized that much of Nasca art was religious in nature and that the representations were composite symbols, not meant to be naturalistic representations of animals. Urteaga wrote other articles on Nasca iconography and related themes over the next decade (e.g., Urteaga 1919b, 1919c, 1919d, 1924, 1928). The first comprehensive work on Nasca iconography was written by the German Americanist Eduard Georg Seler (1849–1922). Seler was trained as a botanist but became interested in American Indian languages in the early 1880s (see Kubler 1991: 164–169). Under the patronage of the wealthy philanthropist Joseph Loubat, he undertook a number of expeditions to Middle America between 1887 and 1911 and was selected as the first recipient of a chair in American linguistics, ethnology, and archaeology at the University of Berlin, also endowed by Loubat (ibid.: 165...

Share