Description

Made by weavers of the Paracas people of Peru’s south coast between 300 BC and AD 100, the tunic (1946.227), headband (1946.228), and mantle (a shawl-like wrap, 1946.226)—are similar to those recovered from the Paracas Necrópolis, a renowned cemetery on the Paracas Peninsula. The cemetery contained over 400 mummy bundles of varying sizes, each created by wrapping a human body in cloth. (In one instance, 45 pounds of beans replaced the corpse, indicating that ancestors were tied to fertility.) In small bundles, the cloth was plain; in the less common larger bundles, some nearly five feet tall, plain cloth alternated with colorful, elaborately embroidered garments like the three shown here.

The three garments are all decorated with the same image—a two-headed bird of unknown significance rendered in different orientations and color combinations. It is not clear whether the textiles form a matched set that an important Paracas man wore as an ensemble.