Tree in the Door's Fauna and Flora: OTI:notes:4/3/19

Open To Interpretation

The Step Fret Checkerboard House

Notes: Game on...on the radio...Dodgers and Giants...Giants 3-2?...it's like the third inning...Angels lost to the Mariners last night, 2-1...the step fret motif has variations...I first came upon it seeing it on an Aztec warrior's shield...last season's post May, 27, 2019...from then to now, it has proliferated!...I first came upon the step motif, the checkerboard looking motif, which is a variant of the step fret, seeing it on an Inca warrior's tunic...in fact, the tunic of the royal guard...from there I found the Inca King's Tunic with it's tocapus, one of the tocapus being the warrior tunic...I'll just call it now: the step fret checkerboard...better known as the Inca Chacana...or Inca Cross...words can't bring these motifs to mind like pics can...so...brb...

quotes (from me)

https://treeinthedoorvideo.blogspot.com/2018/05/otinotes52718.html

Checkerboard Tunic, Camelid fiber, Inca

https://treeinthedoorvideo.blogspot.com/2018/06/otinotes61018.html

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fifth inning?...score's right, Giants 3-2...bottom of sixth...so, so, a lot I've posted about these motifs from then to now!...scholar with the paper about the architectural models, see previous posts, has the notion that the houses, with their motifs, represent what once were real houses, with real motifs...since the real houses were adobe, since eroded, this is hard to prove out...but over last twenty years or so, archaeologists have managed to find some remaining buildings that do indeed have the features of the models...and the motifs...and even the story being told by like the bean warriors on the Moche pottery...author notes the models now can be used to 'decode' what Moche culture was actually like...the models aren't generic, decorative, whimsical...they're real representation!...and as things would have it, they are covered with step frets, step fret checkerboards, step frets with the right triangle, double step frets with the equilateral triangle...this thought that they are 'real' can extend to the motifs on textiles, and motifs on pottery vessels and such...the Chinese say the individual faces on the Terra Cotta Army soldiers are depictions of real soldiers...this kind of connection is with the Moche models...I dunno...it might even be with the Moche portrait vessels...that for sometime!...but anyway, one can proceed thinking that Moche aritfacts have about them a real connection to things in real Moche life...or some such!!!...anyway, the Moche Step Fret Checkerboard House:...oh...wait...I found the 'stepping stone' after the house looking for the house...these posts are actually reviewed and mulled over much before I post them!...

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Image result for moche step fret model house

1,500-year-old ruins shed light on Peru's Moche people - CNN

CNN.com

Inside the banquet hall there were two thrones, of different height, facing each other

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the caption explains offerings are being delivered to a Lord, or god...sitting under the curious canopy...which may be the little house in another guise...this little house gives the 'the little shop of horrors' a run!...that in a day or two!...anyway, note the offerings!...they are like Disney animations of inanimate things, in this case, food plants I suspect...bowls and jars full of plant foods or juices walking about...the legs are one thing...but a close look, and two step frets with triangles and curls are in the tall jar(update5/3: nope...they are on the jar...jar and vessel are offerings; a caption I found)...that's on the left...way over on the right, are jars with ropes around their necks, with feet, some tipped over pouring juice, and on each of them is the step fret checkerboard...it's surreal...a wonder how I have come to this!...the checkerboards are tunics on stylized jar warriors doomed to sacrifice...sacrifices as offerings...the thing that cues this, is the rope...Moche iconography shows naked prisoners doomed to sacrifice as naked, bound, with a rope around their neck...about here I fold my arms, and say to myself, wth!...if I have this right, then what are the two step frets in the big jar?...I dunno...everything in this drawing decodes into real things...some no doubt...there's a stirrup vessel...off hand, I don't recall seeing a stirrup vessel in these bean warrior paintings...the things on top of the canopy are stylized maces...they often appear in rows, as does the step motif (one quarter of a chacana/checkerboard step fret)...I have a bit on that from the astronomer who wrote of these things...in a bit...somewhere a scholar has likely captioned each motif...when I find that, I'll re-visit!...for now, on to the house...double for the Dodgers...Dodgers 4-3...back to looking through the images on google...oh...wait again...here's another of the anticipated steps to tie into the house!

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PDF] South American Cultures

Springer Link

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note the cresent (and too the step frets)...the author in her discussion of the houses mentions some have crescents...she counts only 169 house she has seen...each different...this drawing the astronomer goes on about...I'll get to that...in fact, I got to it in old post!...anyway, the house:

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Image result for moche architecture models

Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas ...

Arts Summary

Architectural Vessel-300

Architectural vessel, Moche culture, Peru, A.D. 450–550. Ceramic. H. 9 in. (24 cm). American Museum of Natural History. Image: Courtesy American Museum of Natural History, Division of Anthropology, photograph by Denis Finnin

https://artssummary.com/2015/12/07/design-for-eternity-architectural-models-from-the-ancient-americas-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art-october-26-2015-september-18-2016/

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there was a show of these models that traveled around...probably somewhere there is a catalog, and in it a reference list of where these are, and captions...note the step fret checkerboard motif...these models have a heraldry like design...and here the checkerboard is in the place of the step frets...as in the first of these houses I posted, Lord Sipan's fan and step fret headdress were in the resgisters on the pottery vessel...model of a tiered temple...well, one more for now, the house with the crescent...oh, the author worked her paper into a book:

Architectural Vessels of the Moche

Ceramic Diagrams of Sacred Space in Ancient Peru

By Juliet B. Wiersema

Dodgers up 5-3...top of ninth...she worked closely with Donnan, a Moche scholar...both have cool looking Moche books...

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Christopher B. Donnan is an archaeologist. He has researched the Moche civilization of ancient Peru for more than fifty years, conducting numerous^[quantify] excavations of Peruvian archaeological sites. Donnan has traveled the world photographing Moche artwork for purposes of publication, recording both museum artifacts and private collections that would otherwise be unavailable to the public.^[1] He has published extensively, both academically and for the general public.^{[citation needed]}
When not involved in writing or fieldwork, Donnan teaches anthropology at University of California Los Angeles as Professor Emeritus and serves as Director for the Fowler Museum.

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hmmph...

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The Fowler's collections comprise more than 120,000 art and ethnographic and 600,000 archaeological objects representing ancient, traditional, and contemporary cultures of Africa, Native and Latin America, and Asia and the Pacific. From Yoruba beaded arts of Southern Nigeria, to pre-Columbian ceramic vessels of Peru

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last 'season' I visited the King Tut show at the Science Museum in LA...thing to do is visit Fowler Museum!...Dodgers one strike away...3-2...ground out...Dodgers 5-3...