The exhibition "The Lord of Sipán: Mystery and Splendour of a Pre-Inca Culture" was one of the most important cultural events of 2006 in Spain.
From March to June 2006, the MARQ exhibited in its three temporary galleries 133 pieces from the funerary offerings of the Lord of Sipán, one of the most outstanding archaeological sites in the world, an impressive vestige of the flourishing Moche culture, which developed on the northern coast of Peru between the 1st and 7th centuries.
The figure of that powerful personage of the high Moche hierarchy who was buried in the company of several people and animals, with a rich trousseau, made up of a multitude of pieces: gold, turquoise and lapis lazuli earmuffs, solid gold and silver coxals, banners in precious metals representative of his rank, as well as an excellent and expressive series of ceramic vessels that contained as offerings, different types of food to accompany the Lord of Sipan, beyond death and that now through their forms illustrate us about the daily life and beliefs of the ancient Moches.
All this legacy was saved thanks to the work of a group of archaeologists who, in 1987 and led by the internationally renowned specialist Walter Alva, began the excavations of this Royal Mausoleum of Lambayeque, saving from looting and destruction all this magnificent legacy that allows us to discover the mystery and splendour of this lord and his people.
The MARQ contributed with that exhibition to the international awareness of the importance of these findings at Sipán; one of the many projects that were generated in Alicante was the making of a documentary directed by José Manuel Novoa, a film that Dr. Alva will present at the Casa América in Madrid on the 21st of May and in Alicante on the 25th of this same month, also presenting the new findings produced at Sipán from 2007 to the present day in the MARQ Assembly Hall, and for the first time in the Salón de Actos of the MARQ.
