Animating Idolatry: Making ancestral kin and personhood in ancient Peru

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Lau, George F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0089-3625 (2021) Animating Idolatry: Making ancestral kin and personhood in ancient Peru. Religions, 12 (5). ISSN 2077-1444

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Abstract

Historical and archaeological records help shed light on the production, ritual practices, and personhood of cult objects characterizing the central Peruvian highlands after ca. AD 200. Colonial accounts indicate that descendant groups made and venerated stone images of esteemed forebears as part of small-scale local funerary cults. Prayers and supplications help illuminate how different artifact forms were seen as honored family members (forebears, elders, parents, siblings). Archaeology, meanwhile, shows the close associations between carved monoliths, tomb repositories, and restricted cult spaces. The converging lines of evidence are consistent with the hypothesis that production of stone images was the purview of family/lineage groups. As the cynosures of cult activity and devotion, the physical forms of ancestor effigies enabled continued physical engagements, which vitalized both the idol and descendant group.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	funerary cult,central andes,materiality of stone,animacy,pre-columbian,recuay,cult objects,ancash,quechua,death practices,cajatambo
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Area Studies Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Art History and World Art Studies Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Centres > Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	11 May 2021 00:15
Last Modified:	21 Jul 2023 09:56
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/79977
DOI:	10.3390/rel12050287

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