Golden bling, ‘sex pot’ ceramics and superheroes: Peruvian empire treasures come to Sydney in new exhibition
The Australian Museum’s record-breaking blockbuster Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs was always going to be a hard act to follow.The great Inca citadel, instantly recognisable as Peru’s world heritage-listed Machu Picchu, is the drawing card for the museum’s major summer exhibition.And while Incan civilisations may not hold the same universal fascination as Egyptology, visitors may be surprised about how little they had known about the complex societies that disappeared with the Spanish invasion, before experiencing Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru.Beneath such sensational fodder as the most opulent collection of gold to ever travel outside Peru, plenty of impossible-to-wear jewellery, and bloodthirsty tales of human sacrifice, the exhibition tracks the existence of six different Andean societies over 3,000 years – Chavín, Moche, Chimú, Nazca, Lambayeque and Inca.While all distinct cultures in themselves, they were united in a worldview where the gods of the overworld and the dead of the underworld interacted up close with the living in daily and spiritual life.
Achieving and maintaining equilibrium was the agrarian community’s collective goal to ensure harmony and its very survival.The exhibition is a collaboration between Lima’s privately owned museum of pre-Columbian art, Museo Larco, the Ministry of Culture of Peru and immersive experiences creator Neon Global, the latter providing a virtual reality tour of Machu Picchu, which visitors prone to vertigo are probably wise to forgo.The Andean worldview is brought to life with more than 130 artefacts, many emphasising the balance between the three distinct realms of sky, land and earth.The many snakes that decorate the pottery for everyday use and rituals, and the funereal finery discovered buried with the nobility that began to be excavated at the turn of the 20th century, symbolise the dark damp subterranean world, a place of the afterlife yet also where seeds are sown and germinate, a place from which all life springs.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best readsThe big cats of the Andean-Amazonian region, the jaguar and the puma, represent the world of the living, the terrestrial sphere, predatory in nature but also agile and resilient.
Amazonian birds of prey, eagles, falcons and majestic condor, represent the upper world, the realm of the gods,To keep the equilibrium in place between all three world to ensure the crops would yield and civilisation prevailed against El Niño events and earthquakes, the gods had to be placated,While the practice of child sacrifice in Incan culture has been extensively documented, this exhibition focuses on the lesser-known ritualistic sacrifice of adult warriors drawn from the nobility – a practice that appears unique to the Moche culture,High-ranking individuals donned ornate gold costume armour that clattered and glittered as they fought in these ritualistic battles that thrilled the public,The losers were disrobed, their bodies decorated with spiritual motifs and they were paraded through the streets to the temple, where they became stewards of sacred blood, offered up to the gods in return for assurances of their community’s ongoing survival and prosperity.
Also distinct in Moche culture was the creation of erotic ceramics,Archeologists continue to debate who these figures, engaged in various sexual acts, represent,“They’re possibly ancestral beings, they could be elites, they could be deities,It’s very hard to tell,” says American archeologist Dr Jacob Bongers, a postdoc in archaeology at the University of Sydney,Sign up to Five Great ReadsEach week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues.
Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morningafter newsletter promotionWhat makes them fascinating is that most of the sexual acts portrayed in the ceramics do not appear to be for the purposes of procreation.That one artefact in the exhibition actually does depict a man and a woman having sexual intercourse is in fact quite a rarity, says Bongers.Museum staff have affectionately dubbed it the “sex pot” collection, prompting the Australian Museum director, Kim McKay, to joke this exhibition could see the museum’s first sealed section in its catalog.The theories surrounding the purpose of the “sex pots” are varied, Bongers says.“But we do have to be very careful with our western biases.
What they considered reproductive and non-reproductive may not be the same as us.So even though it may not have been biologically reproductive for them, that is, all about fertility, it was still sex, perhaps a way of channelling energy, vitality to the different realms, from the celestial realm to the earthly realm to the underworld of the ancestors.“The other main theory is that what we’re seeing is not the world of the living, not daily life, but the world of the dead, and yes, they’re all having sex in the afterlife.”The Moche culture even had it own superhero, a figure whose many heroic acts and daring adventures are captured extensively in pre-Colombian art.As there was no written language, however, his name remains a mystery.
In this exhibition he is called Ai Apaec, a term borrowed from the Muchik language.But there is no mistaking this human superhero with animal attributes taken from all three spheres of the Andean worldview – the fangs of a big cat, the feathers of a bird and snake ornaments dangling from his ears.Ai Apaec, it appears, was the north coast of Peru’s take on pop culture, circa 100-800 CE.Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru is on at Sydney’s Australian Museum until May 2025
Could bad publicity be good for Jaguar? | Brief letters
Marina Hyde, among others, has been critical of Jaguar’s new brand launch (Hats off to Jaguar’s ‘inclusive’ new branding: now people of all backgrounds won’t buy its cars, 22 November). But it seems to have attracted a lot of headlines and column inches, which has meant more people notice it than otherwise would have. Is this clever rather than bad marketing?Luke Brewester Harpenden, Hertfordshire Jonathan Liew’s bleak – and entirely accurate – vision (Sport may be a blunt tool of social change, but it’s time to take a stand against Israel, 22 November) counts up there with some of the most powerful journalism I have ever read. Thank you, Jonathan. It had to be said
Enforced return to office leads workers to seek new jobs
Recruiters have received a surge in job applications from disgruntled workers at companies that are removing employees’ flexibility over where they work after a flurry of return-to-office mandates were issued by large companies.Two-thirds of recruiters have seen an increase in applicants looking for new jobs who are working at companies that are mandating five days a week in the office, according to a survey.In addition, three-quarters of recruiters said they had seen candidates turn down new roles that did not offer hybrid working, according to the survey of 500 in-house and agency recruiters, conducted in November for the flexible workspace provider International Workspace Group (IWG).Similarly, 72% of surveyed recruiters said companies that do not offer hybrid working are becoming less competitive in the job market.The research comes amid the latest battle between employers and office-based employees over where they carry out their work after the explosion in home working caused by the Covid pandemic
Don’t know what to buy your loved ones for Christmas? Just ask ChatGPT
Some people love buying Christmas presents. Polly Arrowsmith starts making a note of what her friends and family like, then hunts for bargains, slowly and carefully. Vie Portland begins her shopping in January and has a theme each year, from heart mirrors to inspirational books. And Betsy Benn spent so much time thinking about presents, she ended up opening her own online gift business.How would these gift-giving experts react to a trend that is either a timesaving brainwave or an appalling corruption of the Christmas spirit: asking ChatGPT to do it for them?The answer, like Christmas Day, will have to wait
AI increasingly used for sextortion, scams and child abuse, says senior UK police chief
Paedophiles, scammers, hackers and criminals of all kinds are increasingly exploiting artificial intelligence (AI) to target victims in new and harmful ways, a senior police chief has warned.Alex Murray, the national police lead for AI, said that the use of the technology was growing rapidly because of its increasing accessibility and that police had to “move fast” to keep on top of the threat.“We know through the history of policing that criminals are inventive and will use anything they can to commit crime. They’re certainly using AI to commit crime now,” he said.“It can happen on an international and serious organised crime scale, and it can happen in someone’s bedroom … You can think of any crime type and put it through an AI lens and say: ‘What is the opportunity here?’”Speaking at the National Police Chiefs’ Council conference in London last week, Murray revealed concerns over emerging AI “heists” in which fraudsters use deepfake technology to impersonate company executives and trick their colleagues into transferring large sums of money
Jannik Sinner tops off dream year by leading Italy to defence of Davis Cup
The rise of Italian men’s tennis has been forecast by many for years as a special generation of young, talented players gradually climbed towards the top of the game. It is fair to say that they have arrived. One year on from their second ever triumph in the competition, Italy won the Davis Cup for a second straight year by defeating the Netherlands 2-0 in Malaga.In a rematch of Italy’s group-stage victory in September, Matteo Berrettini opened the tie with a dominant 6-4, 6-2 win over Botic van de Zandschulp, providing the perfect platform for the world No 1 Jannik Sinner. After edging out a tough opening set over an impressive Tallon Griekspoor, Sinner opened up his shoulders and marched to a 7-6 (2), 6-2 victory
England 59-14 Japan: Autumn Nations Series player ratings
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