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Wednesday 7.3.2001
Peruvian Culture at the Tampere Art Museum
Inca predecessors and their unique art
Putting together the Incas and their Predecessors exhibit at the Tampere Art Museum took three years and some hundred negotiations as far as at the ambassadorial level. According to museum director Anneli Ilmonen, this is the kind of exhibit that won't come around for another hundred years, to Finland or the rest of the Nordic countries.
"Wollen fabric from the time of Nasca - Wari-culture 600 - 850."
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"We were given a great honor as a museum. It helps that the Finnish state took on Peru as one of their most important development aid recipients last year in South America. And we have a great ambassador there," said Ilmonen.
Tampere has works from five Peruvian museums and one museum in Finland. The exhibit at the Tampere Art Museum is as extensive as their earlier Plumed Serpent and Jaguar God exhibition on the ancient cultures of Mexico and Guatemala.
"Transporting the artefacts was a difficult, complicated process. Special boxes were built and Peru's state courier accompanied the exhibit, never letting it out of their sight.”
The artefacts are gathered from three thousand years of Peruvian history, of which the Incas are only one part. Among the pieces on display are ancient textiles that, according to Ilmonen, are worth more than their weight in gold.
Erotic pottery brings Moche culture to life
Some of the more amusing pieces in the exhibit are the erotic potteries. The almost two thousand year old pieces are refreshingly straightforward and human, and they breathe new life into art.
Intercourse. Pottery from the Moche culture, 100 - 200 A.D.
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"Erotic pieces are a small part of the exhibit. We have set them apart because some people don't want children to see these works,” Ilmonen notes.
The erotic artefacts are mainly from the highpoint of this trend, during the Moche culture, between 100 and 700 A.D. Most of the pottery has been discovered in tombs. According to the museum catalogue, this shows that they had more than just esthetic meaning. They may have been connected to fertility, but interestingly, the works also display sexually transmitted diseases and a sense of humor.
Moche culture and erotic pottery went into decline at the same time, and this trend hasn't been much seen in later cultures.
Nasca culture in known for desert geoglyphs
Delightful animal motif pottery and ceramic portraits from the Nasca, Moche's contemporaries, are also on display. However, ancient Peru's massive strongholds, like the ones built in Machu Picchu, can only be seen using the exhibition's multimedia project.
Nasca culture is better known for another kind of artwork, though, one that couldn't be transported: the Nasca lines, geoglyphs drawn onto the desert as if by a hand from the sky.
According to the museum catalogue these lines, images, and creatures were discovered in the 1920s and have been studied since the 1940s. In the 1960s they were made famous, declared to be a landing strip for alien ships.
"A lot of people say they were made by UFOs, but that's just a lot of hot air,” says Ilmonen.
The figures cover some 500 square kilometers, an area about the size of Tampere. Huge size doesn't necessarily equal huge effort, though. A top layer of darker pebbles was simply removed to expose the lighter sand underneath.
"The ancient Nascas turned the desert stones upside-down to get these lines in the earth,” Ilmonen describes.
Researchers think the geoglyphs were done with the aid of mathematics, and presumably for the eyes of the gods. Museum director Anneli Ilmonen notes that the figures may have also had practical significance.
Golden ornaments from the time of Chimú culture 850 - 1450 A.D.
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"Some of these lines run over groundwater supplies, allowing underground aqueducts to be built in the area. There are also symbolic pictures with religious meaning.”
Attendance looks good
Despite February's freezing temperatures, the Incas and their Predecessors exhibit has drawn over 13 000 people. If this continues, the museum's 75 000 target for attendance will be reached midyear.
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