Moche Stirrup Vessel in the Form of a Drummer

Wearing a striped tunic and a flat-topped hat, this ancient musician beats on a tambour drum. For thousands of years throughout the world, drums have provided music both joyous and solemn for ceremonial occasions. In Peru as elsewhere, warriors marched into battle to the beat of the drum, and it is possibly in that capacity that this drummer was buried in an ancient tomb. He may also have provided the somber cadences of the funeral march. If we close our eyes, we can almost hear his distant music echoing through the valleys of the Andes. In his rhythms, we sense the heartbeat of a vanished culture.