Textile Fragment with Skeletal Figure

Item number 33.570a-b from the Brooklyn Museum.

Public

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Data
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Description

Two fragments from a Paracas mantle woven in red and brown with skeletal human figures holding fans or tumi knives. Larger fragment with face is "a"; smaller fragment with full figure is "b".

Label

The backward-bent pose of this skeletal figure with long, streaming hair and a fan or knife in its hand is associated with sacrificial victims and death. At the throat, a square-shaped wound suggests a decapitation. Alternatively, the figure has been interpreted as the seminal being of a mythic transformation sequence in which supernatural beings evolve into more complex, composite figures such as the Plant Beings seen nearby.

La pose torcida hacia atrás de esta figura esquelética con largo pelo flotante y un abanico o cuchillo en su mano está asociada a las víctimas de sacrificio y a la muerte. En la garganta, una herida cuadrada sugiere decapitación. Alternativamente, esta figura ha sido interpretada como el ser seminal de una transformación secuencial en la que seres sobrenaturales se convierten en figuras compuestas más complejas, como los Seres Vegetales que se ven cerca.

Credit Line

A. Augustus Healy Fund

Item History

Made between 101 BCE and 1

What

Name: Textile Fragment with Skeletal Figure
Identification Number: 33.570a-b
Type of Item: textile fragment and figure
Material: cotton and camelid fiber
Measurements: “frag. a: 7 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. (19.1 x 22.2 cm) frag. b: 6 3/16 x 4 1/2 in. (15.7 x 11.4 cm)” ?