Sican Culture

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This article concerns the Sican Culture of what is now Peru. For the people of ancient Sicily, see the article Sicani.

The Sican Culture is the name archaeologists have given to a culture that predated the Inca in what is now the north coast of Peru between about 800-1300 AD. Known for their skills in metallurgy, they produced alloys of gold, silver and arsenic-copper in unprecedented scales in pre-Hispanic America. They made lost-wax gold ornaments and arsenical copper (alloys of several copper mixtures and arsenic that can be described as a brass type), which is the closest material to bronze found in prehistoric New World archaeology and is attributed to be the precursor of the brass age in the north of Peru.

The Sican were probably descendants of the Moche based on shared motifs in their artifacts. Other similar groups include Cajamarca, Wari and Pachacamac. Remains found in the archaeological locations have determined that this culture maintained commercial exchange with populations from Ecuador (shells and snails), Colombia to the north (emeralds and amber), Chile to the south (blue stone), and seeds of gold extracted in the basin from the Marañón River to the east.

The Lambayeque culture was one of those peoples. Around A.D. 800 they created the city of Poma, located at Batan Grande, in the La Leche Valley. Between A.D. 900-1100 it grew to become the region's political and religious centre. The population of Batan Grande included many skilled metal workers. The tombs of Batan Grande lords have held gold and silver keros (beakers), emeralds, pearls and mummy bundles with gold funerary masks along with semi-precious stones, shell and feathers. Other works in clay, wood inlaid with shell, and textiles depict sea birds, fish and scenes of Spondylus shell diving. These shells were collected further north in Ecuador. When the Spanish arrived in the area, they documented that a top-level official was responsible for laying a red carpet of ground Spondylus shell powder before the ruler as he walked. Textiles from the Lambayeque valley show a combination of Moche, Wari and local elements such as characteristic eyes and crescent headdresses, sea motifs and slit tapestry.

Around A.D. 1100, the site was abandoned and burned, and a new centre was established at Túcume (which was eventually conquered by the Chimú in A.D. 1350) and is associated with a great drought that lasted more than 30 years.

The peoples of the Sican culture used tumis, and it was at a site of their culture that the first tumis discovered in situ by archaeologists were found. ^[1]