Tapestry-Woven Tunic Fragment with Figures
Ancón, Peru, 600–1000
Camelid fiber and cotton
Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin, Germany
This famous tunic comes from a tomb at Ancón, on the central coast. The tunic’s fine weaving and imagery suggest that it belonged to a distinguished person affiliated with the Wari state. In each band, one of the staff deity’s winged attendants appears alongside a sacrificer-like figure holding a bow, arrows, and a head-tipped staff. The tunic was draped over a mummy bundle also outfitted with a cloth-wrapped artificial head, a basketry headband, and a wig with dozens of human-hair braids. This treatment, which created a form of soft anthropomorphic sculpture, reflects the importance of ancestral remains. Later Andean people regarded these remains as sacred relics that ensured water supplies, land rights, and fertility for the deceased's descendants. The after-death treatment of the person interred with the tunic reveals the ongoing relationship between the living and ancestral dead. After the deceased was buried, someone opened the tomb, gathered the bones, put them inside a new bundle, and carefully arranged the tunic over the new bundle.
Click on the image to see the full tunic.
