CHARLES MERBS likes nothing better than a pile of old bones. And if the person they belonged to was getting on a bit, so much the better. Merbs is an anthropologist and pathologist who specialises in reconstructing people’s occupations and lifestyles from their skeletons – and the older they were when they died the more pointers their bones will provide. So when Merbs was called in to examine the skeletons of the “Moche Giants” in 2002 he didn’t expect to learn much. These five unusually tall men were the centrepiece of one of the most exciting archaeological finds of recent years, but none of them was more than 22 years old. Too young, thought Merbs, to carry the signatures of long years of labour. He was in for a surprise.
A year earlier, Californian archaeologists had announced a startling discovery. They had just finished excavating a series of tombs built into the great mud-brick pyramid at Dos Cabezas, an ancient Moche settlement on Peru’s northern coast where the Jequetepeque river reaches the Pacific. Each tomb contained the skeleton of a giant – and, in one case, two giants. There were also many fabulous grave goods: gilded headdresses and masks, exquisite pottery, fearsome weapons and, in three cases, a replica tomb in miniature complete with a copper figure.
No one had seen anything like this before. But then no one had seen skeletons like these either. “The average height of Moche people was about 148 centimetres. These guys averaged 175 cm with two of them topping 180 cm,” says Alana Cordy-Collins, an anthropologist at the University of San Diego who helped to excavate the tombs. “Today we wouldn’t think their height outstanding, but among the Moche they were giants.”
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The Moche people occupied the dry coastal region of what is now northern Peru from around AD 100 to 800. They had no written language and the giants have no names, only numbers given them by the archaeologists according to the sequence in which they were found (see “The big dig”). But the archaeologists quickly realised that the dead men were “a set”. They had died sometime between AD 450 and 550 and were buried with great ceremony in a part of the pyramid that seems to have been a cemetery for the Moche upper classes.
The development of their teeth and the extent of fusion of the pelvic bones indicate that they were all young, aged between 17 and 22, when they died. And they shared another feature: they all had thin, fragile bones. From the way they were buried, it was clear that Giants 1, 2, 3 and 4 had died around the same time. “They probably knew each other,” says Cordy-Collins. The fifth giant was buried a short distance away and up to a generation earlier. Ancient looters had opened the corner of his tomb, removed the corpse and taken everything of value, then tossed the giant’s body back inside.
Everything about the giants was a puzzle. Who were they? Why were they so tall? And why had four such similar young men died together? The archaeologists turned to the skeletons for answers. “Their long bones were very long but showed lots of signs of osteoporosis. Some had multiple fractures and some bones were so fragile they could have broken just by sneezing or coughing,” says Cordy-Collins. The giants had other skeletal abnormalities too. Some, such as a pathological overdevelopment of the mid part of the spine, they shared. Others were unique.
At first, Cordy-Collins thought the men had Marfan’s syndrome, a genetic disorder of the connective tissue. People with Marfan’s have long limbs, elongated fingers and toes and a long, narrow face. Some have a deformed breastbone and a curved spine. They also have defects in their heart and aorta, which can lead to early death. That could explain why the Moche five all died so young, when their contemporaries often lived to 50 or beyond. “We convinced ourselves that that was probably it,” says Cordy-Collins. But just as things seemed to be falling into place, experts from the National Marfan Foundation in the US threw a spanner in the works. The men did not have Marfan’s, they said. There were some similarities, but there were more than enough differences to rule it out.
In the absence of a diagnosis, there had to be more the archaeologists could learn from the giants’ bones. It was at this point that Cordy-Collins called Merbs at Arizona State University and asked him to take a look. Merbs has been examining the skeletons of the dead for decades, not only helping archaeologists to piece together the lives of the ancients but also helping the police to identify murder victims. You can tell a lot about someone from the pattern of wear and tear on their bones and the way bone developed at the sites where ligaments and muscles were attached. But what could the Moche giants’ bones tell him? “I didn’t expect to find much,” he says. “Most of the signs you look for develop over a long time and don’t usually show until middle age.” But whatever had made these young men grow into giants had also accelerated the ageing process. Their bones proved such a gold mine of information they’ve kept Merbs busy for two years.
Merbs looked particularly for signs of arthrosis, in which constant wear destroys bone at the surfaces where joints articulate and triggers the growth of new bone around their edges. “These indicate the joint is held in an extreme position for a long time or repeatedly,” he says. “It’s caused by bringing together bones that are not normally in contact. The extent of the change depends on how extreme the position is.” Three of the giants showed distinctive changes, indicating they adopted very particular poses for extended periods.
Big posers
Giants 1 and 3 shared the same pattern of changes, indicating prolonged, tight flexion at the elbows and knees but with striking asymmetry in the extent of the changes. “These two spent lots of time on their knees – primarily the left knee – with the right leg bent at 90 degrees at the knee and the pelvis,” says Merbs. They held both arms up with elbows bent, the right more tightly than the left, and the hands holding something in a vertical position.
Giant 5 also spent a lot of time on one knee, but the changes in his leg bones were less markedly asymmetrical, suggesting he switched knees more often than his fellows. He held his left arm in a similar position to Giants 1 and 3, but his right quite differently. “He wasn’t holding his arm up like the other two but pulled it back beyond his neck as if throwing something,” says Merbs. “But he probably didn’t throw anything, he just held it there in a throwing position for a long time.”
Giants 2 and 4 were equally intriguing, not because of the marks on their skeletons but because of the absence of them. Their bones were just as delicate and prematurely aged, but bore no marks suggestive of any specific activity. In Giant 2’s case this is probably because he didn’t do much at all. This might also be true of Giant 4, who seems to have been of the same high status. But he was the youngest and shortest giant, probably only 17 when he died and not yet fully grown, so it might simply be that he was too young to have acquired the sort of marks shown by the other giants.
To anyone unfamiliar with Moche culture, this might all seem very strange, but Merbs’s findings rang a bell with Cordy-Collins. Although these people had no written language, they were extraordinary artists. They left pots decorated with scenes of Moche ritual life, from hunting and fishing to religious ceremonies and sex. And among them are dozens of examples of what have been dubbed “kneeling warriors”. Some kneel on their right knee, some on their left and some on both, but almost all hold a war club in their right hand and a shield in their left. A rarer figure, known from a single painted image, is “the dart thrower” or “sling-stone thrower”. He also kneels, but holds a spear or slingshot, arm raised and hand well behind the head.
There are also plenty of images of the Moche elite – powerful, wealthy rulers who sit about all day doing nothing, or are carried about in litters. “Most of Moche art depicts ritual and we always thought these were ceremonial figures. But now we’ve found people who actually seem to have had those roles,” says Cordy-Collins.
Some things at least were starting to make sense. Giants 1 and 3 were kneeling warriors. Giant 5 was a dart or sling-stone thrower. Perhaps the men were given these roles because of their condition, which meant that while their height was awesome, their bodies were weak. “They probably looked pretty imposing in their warrior positions, but they would have made poor warriors given the state of their bones,” says Merbs. “Their job was to be seen in a particular position.”
Giants 2 and 4 had different roles in life, suggests Cordy-Collins. She thinks they were members of a super-elite who were waited on hand and foot. This notion fits with the other findings. “Giant 2 was by far the wealthiest, which suggests he was the most important. And like the elite in most societies he probably didn’t have to do much,” says Cordy-Collins. The position and nature of Giant 4’s burial leads her to think he too led a pampered life.
All the giants probably lived in the pyramid complex. “Perhaps Giants 1 and 3 knelt at the sides of Giant 2. It must have been very boring and uncomfortable,” says Cordy-Collins. And it might also have been the death of them. “We don’t think they died from natural causes,” she says. There is no forensic evidence pointing to a cause of death, but the very fact that 1, 2, 3 and 4 all died within a short time of one another suggests that at least some of them were sacrificed. Perhaps one giant died naturally and the others were dispatched shortly after, although it’s not clear who died first.
“The cause of their gigantism remains a mystery. Possibly this was a disease unique to the elite of Dos Cabezas”
Merbs’s forensic analysis of the skeletons has revealed something about the men and what they did during their short lives. Better still, his findings add weight to the idea that in the absence of historical records, archaeologists can rely on the Moche’s art as a source of accurate information about their society. In the past two decades, archaeologists have found tombs at Moche sites containing warrior priests, priestesses, and most recently a “decapitator” – the Moche’s ritual executioner – all types of people previously known only from art. “This adds another piece of evidence that people we had seen in Moche art for years actually represented real people,” says Cordy-Collins.
There is still much about the Moche giants that remains a mystery, not least their gigantism. So far, no one has come up with a convincing diagnosis. The giants grew in spurts, with periods of arrested development followed by rapid growth, and they continued to grow when normal people would have stopped. Possibly this was a disease unique to the elite of Dos Cabezas. Further searching of the looted part of the pyramid near the tomb of Giant 5 has produced the scattered bones of at least seven more disinterred members of the elite – all of them male and all of them giants. That means that every skeleton found so far that belonged to an upper-class Moche man had the condition. Yet the general population seems not to have had it: the bones of those buried with the giants are quite normal.
The condition may have been a genetic disorder that eventually died out. “Some diseases just go extinct. Maybe it was one of those,” says Cordy-Collins. On the other hand, it might have been caused by something in the environment or the men’s diet. “The Moche lived in a strange world and had strange and wonderful drugs. And we know some drugs will age an individual’s skeleton prematurely,” says Merbs. “We are not ruling anything out.”
The big dig
MOCHE society consisted of a strict hierarchy, with farmers and fishermen at the bottom and noblemen and warrior priests at the top. Between these were the artisans – weavers, metalsmiths and potters. Moche farmers built sophisticated irrigation systems, turning near desert into productive land that supported a thriving population, and the potters and metalsmiths made matchless works of art. The lower classes also built temples, palaces and pyramids to house the nobles and priests.
The pyramid at Dos Cabezas is one of the biggest in South America, a vast terraced structure 32 metres high built from mud bricks cemented together with mud mortar. Christopher Donnan from the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History in Los Angeles and his team began working there in 1994. Three years later, Donnan found the first tomb in the south-west corner of the pyramid. Its occupant wore a cylindrical metal headdress and a gold ornament in his nose. A young woman lay crosswise at his feet, and he was surrounded by beautiful pottery and metalwork. The first surprise was that the man was immensely tall – a giant by contemporary standards. He later became known as Giant 1. The second surprise was the existence of another, miniature version of his tomb, complete with replica treasures and the figure of a man made from pieces of copper.
The following season, the team found a second tomb. This too contained a giant and again there was a mini-tomb attached to the main chamber. This man was buried with the trappings of even greater riches and power – 14 headdresses, clubs, spears, shields, gold and silver jewellery and wonderful pots. He wore a headdress decorated with gold bats, a bat ornament on his nose and a spectacular gilded mask. Like Giant 1, he shared his grave with a young woman who had probably been sacrificed.
In 1999, Giant 3 came to light in a tomb adjacent to that of Giant 2. He too had a mini-tomb complete with copper man. The main tomb also contained metal ornaments and beautiful pottery, and the skeletons of two youngsters, possibly attendants who had been sacrificed. Giant 4 almost escaped detection. In 2000, during a final check of Giant 2’s tomb, Donnan and Cordy-Collins discovered him just below where they had found Giant 2. That same season, archaeologists clearing debris from a looted part of the pyramid found Giant 5. Any valuables buried with him had gone, but the team did find a little copper man, wrapped in the remains of textiles and placed on a roof beam.