Virú culture

Virú Ceramic Using Negative Painting Technique. Larco Museum Collection

Virú culture occupied successively the valleys of Chicama and Virú, in Region Libertad, in Peru. The center of their culture was "Castillo de Tomabal", in the area of the left side of the river Virú.

It existed far in advance of the fabled Inca era from 100 to 300 C.E. This culture ended up by being evicted by and conquered by the Mochicas (also known as Moche)from the Cuenca of the Chicama, about the Ist century A.D. and 200 years later they were evicted from the banks of the Virú.

The culture Virú erected big buildings of mud (adobe brick and block). The most notable and largest are: "San Juan, Napo, Sarraque and Tomabal". Undoubtedly they had a class based society. The Virú were the initiators of the huacos – portrait ceramics, which years later would be perfected by the mochicas.

As in all the cultures of these times, agriculture was the base of the economy. In the valleys of Chicama, Moche and Virú large irrigation projects extended the agricultural border. Principal crops cultivated were: corn, beans, legumes, yucca, cotton, green pepper, lúcumo and other fruit trees. These were supplementing a trade in dried fish and sea food products, which were obtained with other coastal Andean peoples.

The cultures of transition of the formative late one developed between the 500 B.C. and the 300 A.D., approximately. They developed for next to 800 years.

The culture also had a rich history of art. They are famous for using a negative painting technique. We understand the expression 'negative painting' to indicate the denial of paint; and this decoration, of a two color type, as a product corresponding to a moment of further cultural development, in this particular instance, immediately preceding the Apogee Period of highest cultural development. Many pieces can be seen in the Larco Museum Collection in Lima, Peru.