Who were the MOCHES? (100BCE - 800EC)

The name MOCHE derives from the Moche Valley which, along the Chicama Valley were the heart of the Moche Culture.
In a strict visual context, the MOCHE's art style is one of the most representational styles in the ancient Andes.
It is rich in symbolism that gives us an idea of the beliefs and functions of its religious centers. They built large ceremonial places known as "huacas," that served as receptors of sacred cosmic energies that were received throughout their cosmic ceremonial calendar. This places were also used as burial site for Moche elite.
Geometric designs, portrayals of supernatural entities and events, warriors engaged in combat, captives, plants and animals, architectural structures, are among the subjects chosen by Moche's artists in their representations of their people and their beliefs.
One particular type of a decorated ceramic vessel named "the stirrup-spout"consists of a globular body from which two tubes emerge and join together to make a central spout. It is 2000 years old. It is being priced for their symbolic meaning of dualism, which is the basic ingredient of the Andean religious beliefs.
Another  stirrup-spout vessel at the Museo Larco portraits a deity called "Wrinkle Face"(occasionally referred to as AIPAEC meaning "the Creator", QUISMIQUE, meaning 'the Old One; the Fanged God and the Serpent belt God) and his consort having sexual intercourse. The peculiarity of the scenery is that the figures are not placed face to face, instead the masculine figure of the god is behind her, and at the same time he is grasping her chin with his right hand, a gesture that sometimes occurs in examples showing combat scenes in which the triumphant warrior grasps the chin of a captive.
Another peculiarity of the Moche's art is the highly realistic and individualized busts of personalities having mushrooms either on top or on the side of their heads.
The highly pictorial quality of small scale Moche art follows consistent rules and aims for clarity in interpreting them. It minimize ambiguity. It focus on action, movement and interaction between figures. They used techniques such as scale and vertical positioning to indicates depth of fields and a type of "locators" to indicate that a physical setting is being in use. It also uses symmetry and reversible imagery and the metaphorical transformation of parts of figures into other forms or entities.
The relationship between  objects, concepts and events described in the subject of rituals were used as a  tool of human language and serve as a basis for understanding the world through logic thinking.
The human body served as the model for understanding the world. I  that context human sexuality was linked to a larger-scale phenomena such as social organization and agricultural planting seasons (fertility imagery).