Browse Items (254 total)

This tiny bit of a very fine tapestry is all that is left from a Tiwanaku-style textile dating to around 600 AD. It features a human arm and hand grasping some kind of a staff, facing right. It was once connected to a very complex body with wings and…

High-status headwear was always the prerogative of the elites in ancient Andean societies. In the Wari Empire, the pre-Inka state that dominated much of the Central Andes ca. 600–1000 AD, officials wore small, four-sided hats that sat high on their…

Though this is only a small portion of the original composition, even in this fragmentary state the amount of thread that floats over the surface of the ground cloth is amazing. The cloth is the greenish brown that is now functioning only as the…

Every motif in this border fragment is either interlocked with another version of itself or is shaped so that it could be, which epitomizes the concept of interlockedness or reciprocity, ayni. Starting from the top are a band of curling snakes, their…

For millennia, Andean peoples have wrapped their precious objects in cloth, from mummies (the first ones in world history), to metalwork, to other cloths. Wrapping expresses the concept of ukhu, the importance of that which is hidden. Here nineteen…

It may seem odd that a textile exhibition should include several metal objects. However, these earspools with wide posts show clear evidence of having been wrapped in textiles in antiquity. An Inka tumi and Sicán tumi (ceremonial knives with…

It may seem odd that a textile exhibition should include several metal objects. However, this ceremonial knife with a crescent-shaped blade (known as a tumi) shows clear evidence of having been wrapped in textiles in antiquity. A later Inka…

It may seem odd that a textile exhibition should include several metal objects. However, this ceremonial knife with a crescent-shaped blade (known as a tumi) shows clear evidence of having been wrapped in textiles in antiquity. This Inka tumi takes…

The two fragments of this tunic from the far north coast of Perú are shown with the larger remaining portion facing out and the smaller one showing the side worn toward the wearer’s body. In other words, the whole tunic was covered with red tassels…

Several hundred of these effigy figures, completely made from fiber, remain from graves in the dry coastal sands of the Chancay Valley in central Perú. Reeds provide the basic structure, which is then dressed in miniature garments—here a skirt, belt,…