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: Mythical anthropomorphic
Funerary mantle. Plain weave, cross-knit looping and embroidery in the Linear style; camelid and cotton fibers. Mummy Nº 378, object Nº 2. 255,5 x 131 cm (INC-MNAAHP, RT-1550)
Funerary mantle (detail). Plain weave, cross-knit looping and embroidery in the Block Color style; camelid and cotton fibers. Mummy Nº 319, object Nº 7. 250 x 131 cm (INC-MNAAHP, RT-31783)
Embroidery in the Block Color style
Mantle’s central motif
Mantle: Mythical Anthropomorphic Being
The motif embroidered here is a Mythical Anthropomorphic Being wearing a diadem, disc earrings and a nose ring. Two serpents with spiked bodies emerge from its mouth, while another is coming out of its head. One of them is holding a sack of beans in its jaws. On both sides of the head are felines with plant features. The figure has been interpreted as a mythical being related to agricultural fertility, represented in shamanic flight. This piece comes from the same bundle as the mantle showing the shaman of the orcas.