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: hunchbacked shamans
Funerary mantle. Plain weave, cross-knit looping and embroidery in the Block Color style; camelid fiber. Mummy Nº 290, Object Nº 16. 268 x 158 cm (INC-MNAAHP, RT-1087)
Funerary mantle (detail). Plain weave, cross-knit looping and embroidery in the Block Color style; camelid fiber. Mummy Nº 290, Object Nº 16. 268 x 158 cm (INC-MNAAHP, RT-1087)
Embroidery in the Block Color style
Mantle’s central motif
Mantle: Hunchbacked shamans
The motif embroidered repeatedly onto the central field and borders of this mantle appear 63 times. It consists of a hunchbacked figure, perhaps an old man, whose outfit ends in severed human heads. The figure has unbound hair and wear a diadem and circular ear ornaments. Above its head is a triangular knife and in one hand is a severed head, while the other holds a fan that covers half of its face and a staff with rattles. The figure may represent a shaman transfigured into an animal, as it has claws instead of feet.