Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul B. Taylor

A canteen-shaped jar with polychrome designs outlined in black on a brown slip. The vessel has a tall thin neck, slightly flared rim, and a small handle on one shoulder. The jar's decoration is dominated with two snarling feline figures, one on each side, and the rim with alternating black and beige rectangles. The surface is heavily burnished. Condition: good.

Wig headdress consisting of a cap made by simple looping of cotton (white) and undyed camelid fibers (natural browns). Thin braids of human hair are attached to and hang from the cap, and are decorated at the lower ends with red, white, yellow/gold, and blue dyed camelid fibers that are wrapped aound each braid. Wig headdresses have been found in association with mummy bundles of elite Wari state representatives buried along the desert coast. They would have been placed on top of the false head of a mummy bundle (Rebecca Stone-Miller, To Weave for the Sun. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Thames and Hudson, 1992). Size: adult. Probable wearer: female or undetermined. Hat: camelid fiber, simple looping. Braiding: human hair. Camelid fiber wrapping.

Henry L. Batterman Fund

George C. Brackett Fund

Size: adult. Probable wearer: male. Horizontal cotton warp. Camelid fiber weft. Tapestry weave with interlocking juncture. The design consists of two variants, one section with profile faces and frets, the other with an animal-headed wingless figure carrying 2 staffs.

Sleeved tunic with neck opening and fringed bottom. Making up its overall design are alternate bands: six that are patterned and seven that are plain red. Patterned bands continue to the edge of each sleeve, becoming very narrow at the tunic's sides. The patterned bands contain a repetitive profile of a winged figure holding a staff. Each reverses its direction along the vertical. With one bent leg below its body and the other above it, each figure floats against the ground. The solid-colored body is simplified except for a hatched design at the waist (ribs? belt?). Its headdress is made up of two bird heads with a border of stepped frets underneath. Its staff is held parallel to the tunic's shoulder seam, then turns under the figure's body and ends in the shape of a fanged animal head. A wing-like appendage emerges from its lower back and "squares" around a foot, then lies parallel to the bottom of the tunic. The imagery reflects the iconography of the monumental stone sculpture of the ceremonial site Tiwanaku in Bolivia (500-1000 A.D.) The patterns have four different color schemes arranged diagonally. Condition: The neck slit of the tunic is worn. Surface of garment overall shows wear. Some diagonal slits are open and some are repaired. Size: Adult. Probable wearer: Male. Horizontal cotton warp. Camelid fiber weft. Camelid fiber fringe. Tapestry weave with interlocked discontinuous wefts (reversible). Crossed looping embellishment at neck and arm holes.

Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.

Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.