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Due to the dry climate of the ancient Andes, thousands upon thousands of textiles were preserved from antiquity, as well as weaving and spinning tools and balls of yarn, often accompanying the deceased. Both elaborating these tools and then burying…

Vessel with Double-Headed Snakes-Caiman
Central America, Panamá
Macaracas
ca. 9th-11th century AD
Ceramic
Gift of Alan Grinnell Ars Ceramica Collection
2015.39.1

Throughout history, what is considered “traditional” changes over time. Colonized peoples like the Maya, who still number at least six million today, retain certain items of dress from their long past, while adopting others from their colonizers,…

Unlike Maya women’s dress, men’s dress, by contrast, reflects their greater participation in the political, economic, and religious colonial world established by the European invaders. Tailoring lengths of cloth, an idea that was antithetical to…

Qumpi, what the Inka called cloth made as well as humanly possible, is a deeply Andean category of clothing. Function, such as this being a man’s shirt, was not seen as opposite of what we may call art, the most skilled, aesthetic, intentional, and…

Of the incredible range of techniques and ideas that the ancient Andean textile artists developed, this piece required perhaps the most complicated creative process of all. At first glance, it simply seems like bits of tie-dyed cloth sewn together in…