Peru’s Ministry of Culture presented to the public a 3,800-year-old clay sculpture from the Vichama archaeological site depicting two small toads joined by their hind legs and painted red and black. The figure, about 12 centimeters tall, was the first of its kind found at Vichama and went on view for the first time at the ministry’s headquarters, according to O Globo.
The piece was uncovered earlier this year during conservation work at Vichama, an ancient agropastoral city in Huaura Province, about 160 kilometers from Lima.
“The toad is an animal linked to the cult of water, but there had already been mural reliefs found in Vichana of anthropomorphic beings that are skeletal, cadaveric, that mention a record of this collective memory that has happened in Caral, an event of climate change,” said Tatiana Abad, head of the Vichama archaeological site. Abad said the figure also represented fertility and prosperity and suggested a social appeal for change during a climate-driven crisis.
During a press conference, Ruth Shady, director of the Caral Archaeological Zone, reaffirmed Abad’s interpretation and said the find reinforced the message of Vichama’s mural reliefs, which narrated scarcity and hope amid environmental crises linked to climate change, according to 24 Chasa.
The Caral Archaeological Zone team said the statuette’s importance was greater than it appeared. The piece seemed to carry, in miniature, an ancestral request for fertility and abundance and pointed to the choice of frogs, animals still viewed as rain announcers in different cultures.
In 2015, archaeologists discovered a wall at Vichama with relief figures described as cadaveric, with empty stomachs and closed eyes, and also found remains of a person who appeared malnourished.
The sculpture belonged to the pre-Hispanic Caral culture, often described as the oldest in the Americas. Caral dated to about 5,000 years and was inscribed by UNESCO as a Cultural Heritage of Humanity site in 2009. The ancient city of Caral included 32 monumental buildings, such as pyramids and amphitheaters; it existed at the same time as the civilizations of Egypt and Sumer. The broader Caral civilization encompassed about thirty major settlements along Peru’s northern coast and, researchers indicated, developed in isolation.
Vichama flourished between 1800 and 1500 BCE during the last phase of the Caral civilization. The pre-Columbian city covered about 25 hectares and included 28 buildings - public structures, plazas, and residential areas - and preserves numerous pyramidal structures dated to 3000-1800 BCE.
The preparation of this article relied on a news-analysis system.