This dissertation proposes, on the basis of an iconographic and stylistic analysis of Moche fineline painted decorations on ceramic vessels from the Moche, Jequetepeque, and Chicama Valleys in north coastal Peru, a new chronology for, and an enhanced understanding of, the political landscape of Moche culture during the Late Moche period (AD 600-900). I, like others before me, see Moche ceramic vessel paintings as manifestations of the dominant ideology of the polities that created them and as belonging to distinct regional artistic substyles. This dissertation reevaluates these paintings through the lens of regional variation. A formal and iconographic comparison of two previously identified substyles, one called the "Huacas de Moche substyle" and other the "San Jos� de Moro substyle," as well as a new one, which I label the "Late Chicama substyle," reveals evidence that the Huacas de Moche fineline painting tradition preceded that of the Late Chicama tradition and that the Late Chicama substyle came before the San Jos� de Moro tradition. Examination of the roles these substyles played in elite power strategies at each polity indicates that certain major changes took place over time in Moche ideology and political organization.

The first chapter reviews previous studies of Moche fineline painting and argues for the use in subsequent chapters of certain theories of style, political economy, and agency in establishing temporal connections between fineline pottery and political change. The second chapter outlines previous models of Moche political organization, from the older single-state hypothesis, in which all Moche sites were subject to a capital established at Huacas de Moche, to the current model of multiple polities, each with its own capital. Chapter Three, which compares the Huacas de Moche and San Jos� de Moro styles of Moche fineline painting, is followed by Chapter Four, in which the Late Chicama fineline painting substyle is compared to the other two. By tracing the development of fineline boat imagery across the three substyles, Chapter Five reveals a temporal progression from the Huacas de Moche substyle to the Late Chicama substyle, followed by the San Jos� de Moro substyle. In Chapter Six, on the basis of these iconographic changes, I argue that the Late Chicama polity grew out of the Huacas de Moche polity and propose that the San Jos� de Moro polity was founded by an elite family responsible for impersonating the so-called Priestess--a possibly mythological figure in Moche art whose real-life correlates, high status human ritual impersonators--have been discovered archaeologically at that site.