Paracas Funerary Mantles: Offerings for Life – 2015
- Paracas funerary mantles: Offerings for Life
- Who Were The Paracas?
- The Wari Kayán Cemetery and Its discoverer
- What is a funerary bundle?
- Offerings for the Afterlife
- “Reading” the Images
- Severed heads, trophy heads
- Paracas textile art
- Three styles of embroidery
- A miniature outfit
- Headband: Turban I
- Headband: Turban II
- Headband: Turban III
- Turban-cloth: Two-headed serpents
- Skirt: Big-Eyed Being
- Uncu tunic with felines: Big-eyed Being
- Short poncho: Orcas
- Short poncho: Feline-Man
- Short poncho with fringes: Big-Eyed Being
- Attire of a Paracas chief
- Opening a funerary bundle from the Wari Kayán Necrópolis
- Mantles for the afterfile
- Bibliographic references
- Credits
Mantle: Shamans in flight
Funerary mantle. Plain weave, cross-knit looping and embroidery in the Block Color style; camelid and cotton fibers. Mummy Nº 38, object Nº 14. 251 x 137,5 cm (INC-MNAAHP, RT-1269)
Funerary mantle (detail). Plain weave, cross-knit looping and embroidery in the Block Color style; camelid and cotton fibers. Mummy Nº 38, object Nº 14. 251 x 137,5 cm (INC-MNAAHP, RT-1269)
Embroidery in the Block Color style
Mantle’s central motif
Mantle: Shamans in flight
The motif on this mantle is embroidered 63 times with slightly different colors and features. It represents a figure with the head looking backward and hair hanging down the back, its body in a contorted position. The figures are wearing a skirt, a diadem on its forehead and ear ornaments, and with their faces painted or tattooed. Some are holding staffs, others fans, or wield knives. This character has been interpreted as a shaman dancing or in a “shamanic flight.” It has also been interpreted as an ancestor embodied as a shaman or deceased person, based on its skull-face, prominent ribs, and deep chest wounds, all features associated with death.