PARACAS culture South coast 700 BC – 200 AD
Mantle with flying figures 100 BC - 200 AD wool and cotton138.0 (h) x 251.0 (w) cm Ministerio de Cultura del Perú: Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, Photograph: Daniel Giannoni
Among the renowned Paracas textiles, the mantle with flying figures is one of the most memorable, with its brilliant colour combinations, sophisticated techniques of both weaving and embroidery, and engaging iconography. Magical figures fly, reversed in a checkerboard pattern across a dark indigo camelid-wool field, showing their curved legs and hair in streaming braids. Each wears a feline headdress and clutches tools showing its supernatural power: feather fans in the shape of a tumi, swords, arrows, staffs. Fingers and toes appear as claws, repeating the striped pattern of skirts and braided hair. Beings were transformed into demi-gods with animal characteristics, in flight because earthly shamans dreamed of them in coca-fed trances. The figures also appear on the red cotton borders, interspaced with smaller versions.
The mantle is recorded as Object no. 14 in Mummy Bundle no. 38, found in the Wari Kayan necropolis,1 located on the slopes of Cerro Colorado:
The bodies of older males [buried at the Paracas Necropolis] were wrapped in the most exquisite fabrics, indicating high status. Patterns and images of plants and animals may have conveyed information about the deceased’s lineage, role in society, and occupation.2
Mummified bodies were surrounded by offerings, folded cloths and garments stuffed into the bundles, covered by layers of plain cloth. Ceramic vessels were also included, but the artisans of Paracas do not seem to have used much metal, perhaps because of the region’s geology.
All the textiles were preserved by the extraordinarily arid climate of the desert in which the Paracas Peninsula is located, on the southern coast of Peru. The fardos were buried first in inaccessible shafts dug in caves, and later in built cemeteries. The temperature was constant, humidity was very low, daylight was excluded, and the graves were eventually covered in rocks and earth. These conditions were perfect for the protection of organic materials such as cotton and wool, and even the hair and skin of the mummified bodies.
The skill and sophistication of Paracas textile makers are extraordinary. As well as spinning the finest cotton and camelid-wool fibres, they wove exquisite cloth. To decorate it, the embroiderers regularly repeated thousands of tiny stem stitches to create the figures, here in 63 versions, with extravagant colour variations. The artists made aesthetic choices that still appeal to us 2000 years later, exercising their imaginations in an infinite number of ways. It is not known if these mantles were worn for ritual occasions in life, but certainly most took hundreds, even thousands, of hours of labour to produce. As with other ancient Peruvian cultures, the most important creative impulses in Paracas may have been directed towards making items to accompany the dead.
Christine Dixon
1. Paracas: Trésors inédits du Pérou ancien, Paris: Musée du quai Branly and Flammarion 2008, p. 192.
2. Federico Kauffmann-Doig, Ancestors of the Incas: The lost civilizations of Peru, Eulogio Guzmán (trans.), Memphis, Tenn.: Lithograph Publishing Company 1998, p. 108.
Among the renowned Paracas textiles, the mantle with flying figures is one of the most memorable, with its brilliant colour combinations, sophisticated techniques of both weaving and embroidery, and engaging iconography. Magical figures fly, reversed in a checkerboard pattern across a dark indigo camelid-wool field, showing their curved legs and hair in streaming braids. Each wears a feline headdress and clutches tools showing its supernatural power: feather fans in the shape of a tumi, swords, arrows, staffs. Fingers and toes appear as claws, repeating the striped pattern of skirts and braided hair. Beings were transformed into demi-gods with animal characteristics, in flight because earthly shamans dreamed of them in coca-fed trances. The figures also appear on the red cotton borders, interspaced with smaller versions.
The mantle is recorded as Object no. 14 in Mummy Bundle no. 38, found in the Wari Kayan necropolis,1 located on the slopes of Cerro Colorado:
The bodies of older males [buried at the Paracas Necropolis] were wrapped in the most exquisite fabrics, indicating high status. Patterns and images of plants and animals may have conveyed information about the deceased’s lineage, role in society, and occupation.2
Mummified bodies were surrounded by offerings, folded cloths and garments stuffed into the bundles, covered by layers of plain cloth. Ceramic vessels were also included, but the artisans of Paracas do not seem to have used much metal, perhaps because of the region’s geology.
All the textiles were preserved by the extraordinarily arid climate of the desert in which the Paracas Peninsula is located, on the southern coast of Peru. The fardos were buried first in inaccessible shafts dug in caves, and later in built cemeteries. The temperature was constant, humidity was very low, daylight was excluded, and the graves were eventually covered in rocks and earth. These conditions were perfect for the protection of organic materials such as cotton and wool, and even the hair and skin of the mummified bodies.
The skill and sophistication of Paracas textile makers are extraordinary. As well as spinning the finest cotton and camelid-wool fibres, they wove exquisite cloth. To decorate it, the embroiderers regularly repeated thousands of tiny stem stitches to create the figures, here in 63 versions, with extravagant colour variations. The artists made aesthetic choices that still appeal to us 2000 years later, exercising their imaginations in an infinite number of ways. It is not known if these mantles were worn for ritual occasions in life, but certainly most took hundreds, even thousands, of hours of labour to produce. As with other ancient Peruvian cultures, the most important creative impulses in Paracas may have been directed towards making items to accompany the dead.
Christine Dixon
1. Paracas: Trésors inédits du Pérou ancien, Paris: Musée du quai Branly and Flammarion 2008, p. 192.
2. Federico Kauffmann-Doig, Ancestors of the Incas: The lost civilizations of Peru, Eulogio Guzmán (trans.), Memphis, Tenn.: Lithograph Publishing Company 1998, p. 108.
Among the renowned Paracas textiles, the mantle with flying figures is one of the most memorable, with its brilliant colour combinations, sophisticated techniques of both weaving and embroidery, and engaging iconography. Magical figures fly, reversed in a checkerboard pattern across a dark indigo camelid-wool field, showing their curved legs and hair in streaming braids. Each wears a feline headdress and clutches tools showing its supernatural power: feather fans in the shape of a tumi, swords, arrows, staffs. Fingers and toes appear as claws, repeating the striped pattern of skirts and braided hair. Beings were transformed into demi-gods with animal characteristics, in flight because earthly shamans dreamed of them in coca-fed trances. The figures also appear on the red cotton borders, interspaced with smaller versions.
The mantle is recorded as Object no. 14 in Mummy Bundle no. 38, found in the Wari Kayan necropolis,1 located on the slopes of Cerro Colorado:
The bodies of older males [buried at the Paracas Necropolis] were wrapped in the most exquisite fabrics, indicating high status. Patterns and images of plants and animals may have conveyed information about the deceased’s lineage, role in society, and occupation.2
Mummified bodies were surrounded by offerings, folded cloths and garments stuffed into the bundles, covered by layers of plain cloth. Ceramic vessels were also included, but the artisans of Paracas do not seem to have used much metal, perhaps because of the region’s geology.
All the textiles were preserved by the extraordinarily arid climate of the desert in which the Paracas Peninsula is located, on the southern coast of Peru. The fardos were buried first in inaccessible shafts dug in caves, and later in built cemeteries. The temperature was constant, humidity was very low, daylight was excluded, and the graves were eventually covered in rocks and earth. These conditions were perfect for the protection of organic materials such as cotton and wool, and even the hair and skin of the mummified bodies.
The skill and sophistication of Paracas textile makers are extraordinary. As well as spinning the finest cotton and camelid-wool fibres, they wove exquisite cloth. To decorate it, the embroiderers regularly repeated thousands of tiny stem stitches to create the figures, here in 63 versions, with extravagant colour variations. The artists made aesthetic choices that still appeal to us 2000 years later, exercising their imaginations in an infinite number of ways. It is not known if these mantles were worn for ritual occasions in life, but certainly most took hundreds, even thousands, of hours of labour to produce. As with other ancient Peruvian cultures, the most important creative impulses in Paracas may have been directed towards making items to accompany the dead.
Christine Dixon
1. Paracas: Trésors inédits du Pérou ancien, Paris: Musée du quai Branly and Flammarion 2008, p. 192.
2. Federico Kauffmann-Doig, Ancestors of the Incas: The lost civilizations of Peru, Eulogio Guzmán (trans.), Memphis, Tenn.: Lithograph Publishing Company 1998, p. 108.
