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- Title
Stagecraft and the Politics of Spectacle in Ancient Peru.
- Authors
Swenson, Edward
- Abstract
Archaeological investigations of public spectacle as mediated architecturally can provide an effective means to interpret culturally specific power asymmetries in prehistoric societies and the essential role of ritual performance in the creation of diverse forms of political subjectivity. A diachronic study of Late Formative (300???100 BC) and Moche (AD 550???800) ceremonial architecture from the Jequetepeque Valley in northern Peru demonstrates that archaeologists can approximate how power relations were materialized, conceptualized and contested in the Andes through their theatrical performance. Ultimately, a comparison of the performative construction of power with traditional archaeological indices of class-based inequalities reveals intriguing contradictions that both complicate and enrich our understanding of changing political structures in ancient Jequetepeque.
- Subjects
JEQUETEPEQUE River Valley (Peru); PERU; ANDES; ARCHITECTURE; PREHISTORIC antiquities; PREHISTORIC architecture; POWER (Social sciences); SOCIAL classes; EQUALITY
- Publication
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2011, Vol 21, Issue 2, p283
- ISSN
0959-7743
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S095977431100028X