Chimú woven textiles are sometimes embellished with an appliqué of metal discs and ornaments. Here, the facial features—eyes, noses and mouths—on these two burial masks are comprised of metal shapes stitched onto plain cotton cloth.²

On the mask made from natural-coloured cotton (see related object), the copper alloy used for the eyes and nose has turned slightly green with age, while the mouth, probably made of a silver and tin alloy, is now a darker hue. The prominent nose is structured from a small piece of wood, over which the sheet of copper has been moulded. The simple yet striking design has been accentuated with the addition of pink and yellow bands, also sewn to the base fabric at the top and bottom of the pale face. These brightly coloured borders are patterned with series of cats with large heads and curly tails, created using the floating threads of a complementary-warp weaving technique. The body of each animal is seen in profile, while its head faces the front. The cats are repeated across the stripes of fabric, in pink thread on a yellow ground, and then mirrored in the next section as a yellow animal on pink. These bands are made using camelid wool, most likely either llama or alpaca, while the neutral-coloured cloth is cotton.

The more complex red cotton mask displays the severed head motif that dates back to the Chavín period, and is shared by many ancient Peruvian cultures. Conservation of the heads, which dangle from the rich blue, red and yellow striped band on either side of the face, uncovered that they are not only stuffed with a cotton lint, but are also filled with many seeds, most likely corn kernels, which were a staple of many ancient Peruvian cultures (see related object). The long, striped, multi-coloured strip of cotton warp and camelid-wool weft cloth that frames the mask was a common component of Chimú dress, usually with tasselled ends that were wound around the head or used to tie-up hair. Inca women are known to have worn similar bands and the placement of the band on the mask suggests that it may have been connected to the burial site of a female.³ The groups of threads that attach the severed heads to the band emulate hair. Surrounded by a brown camelid-wool border, bound in sections with cream cotton twine, the severed heads have distinct fronts and backs. Below their small eyes and slightly worried mouths, red cotton tassels hang from their chins.

Simeran Maxwell

1. Radiocarbon dating of this mask published in S. J. Fallon, L. K. Fifield and J. M. Chappell, ‘The next chapter in radiocarbon dating at the Australian National University: Status report on the single stage AMS, Nuclear Instruments and Methods’, Physics Research, B 268, 2010, pp. 898–901.

2. See the Museo Larco’s unku and loincloth (ML600142 and ML600143), Museo Larco catalogue, accessed 27 July 2013, http://www.museolarco.org/catalogo/ficha.php?id=44560 and http://www.museolarco.org/catalogo/ficha.php?id=44561.

3. Ann Pollard Rowe, ‘Textiles from the burial platform of Las Avispas at Chan Chan’, Ñawpa Pacha, no. 18, 1980, p. 106.

Chimú woven textiles are sometimes embellished with an appliqué of metal discs and ornaments. Here, the facial features—eyes, noses and mouths—on these two burial masks are comprised of metal shapes stitched onto plain cotton cloth.²

On the mask made from natural-coloured cotton (see related object), the copper alloy used for the eyes and nose has turned slightly green with age, while the mouth, probably made of a silver and tin alloy, is now a darker hue. The prominent nose is structured from a small piece of wood, over which the sheet of copper has been moulded. The simple yet striking design has been accentuated with the addition of pink and yellow bands, also sewn to the base fabric at the top and bottom of the pale face. These brightly coloured borders are patterned with series of cats with large heads and curly tails, created using the floating threads of a complementary-warp weaving technique. The body of each animal is seen in profile, while its head faces the front. The cats are repeated across the stripes of fabric, in pink thread on a yellow ground, and then mirrored in the next section as a yellow animal on pink. These bands are made using camelid wool, most likely either llama or alpaca, while the neutral-coloured cloth is cotton.

The more complex red cotton mask displays the severed head motif that dates back to the Chavín period, and is shared by many ancient Peruvian cultures. Conservation of the heads, which dangle from the rich blue, red and yellow striped band on either side of the face, uncovered that they are not only stuffed with a cotton lint, but are also filled with many seeds, most likely corn kernels, which were a staple of many ancient Peruvian cultures (see related object). The long, striped, multi-coloured strip of cotton warp and camelid-wool weft cloth that frames the mask was a common component of Chimú dress, usually with tasselled ends that were wound around the head or used to tie-up hair. Inca women are known to have worn similar bands and the placement of the band on the mask suggests that it may have been connected to the burial site of a female.³ The groups of threads that attach the severed heads to the band emulate hair. Surrounded by a brown camelid-wool border, bound in sections with cream cotton twine, the severed heads have distinct fronts and backs. Below their small eyes and slightly worried mouths, red cotton tassels hang from their chins.

Simeran Maxwell

1. Radiocarbon dating of this mask published in S. J. Fallon, L. K. Fifield and J. M. Chappell, ‘The next chapter in radiocarbon dating at the Australian National University: Status report on the single stage AMS, Nuclear Instruments and Methods’, Physics Research, B 268, 2010, pp. 898–901.

2. See the Museo Larco’s unku and loincloth (ML600142 and ML600143), Museo Larco catalogue, accessed 27 July 2013, http://www.museolarco.org/catalogo/ficha.php?id=44560 and http://www.museolarco.org/catalogo/ficha.php?id=44561.

3. Ann Pollard Rowe, ‘Textiles from the burial platform of Las Avispas at Chan Chan’, Ñawpa Pacha, no. 18, 1980, p. 106.