The Moche art style is best known through its highly refined ceramic vessels, which frequently accompanied burials. Estimates suggest that there are over 100,000 Moche vessels in museum and private collections worldwide (Donnan 1976: 13). The vessels, often decorated in a strongly pictorial style uncharacteristic of art of the Central Andean region, offer modern viewers tantalizing glimpses of Moche worldview. The highly consistent and formalized iconography on Moche vessels has been the topic of numerous studies, beginning around the middle of the last century, which have shed light on...