Recursion and Reflexivity within the Picture Chambers of Huaca Facho

In the mid-twentieth century, land owners in north-coastal Peru uncovered a remarkable pre-Hispanic structure at Huaca Facho (aka La Mayanga) that was investigated by archaeologist James Ford of the American Museum of Natural History in 1959. Ford did not publish his study of the red and yellow walls and their twenty niches, each of which was painted inside with an image of an animated, winged weapons bundle bearing a goblet. What was especially notable about these niches was the profusion of imagery scratched in various styles into their side walls. The monument was later partially published in Archaeology magazine (Donnan 1972), but recent archival research at the AMNH has allowed for deeper understanding of the spatial relationships between painted and scratched images. The niche walls bear scratched images that mimic the painted images as “replicatory chains” that were part of recursive practices of image viewing, reception, and response. The reflexivity of the images scratched within the “picture chambers” of Huaca Facho is, on the one hand, part of a broader practice of so-called graffiti in Moche and Lambayeque settings. But, on the other, these niches are unique. Their form would have created immersive spaces, largely removed from the world outside. Further, their multiplicity would have allowed for individual image experiences en masse. In this paper, I explore possibilities for conceptualizing the Huaca Facho niches as caves, “cameras,” and “new” media in late first millennium CE Peru.