Glove of plain weave cotton fiber with tapestry-woven imagery in cotton and dyed camelid fibers. Decoration includes typical Wari elements such as fingernail tips, feline figures with split eyes, and profile feline heads with curved noses. The central human figure is Moche in style with a tumi knife headdress, serpent-headed belt and warrior backflap, and a shield and ceremonial goblet held in the figure's hands. Condition: fair; the plain-weave cotton structure is damaged with about 10% of glove missing especially around the wrist.

Gift of George D. Pratt

A. Augustus Healy Fund and Carll H. de Silver Fund

A single tapestry panel with an alternating pattern of human heads wearing tasseled, four-cornered hats, and fanged supernatural beings with a protruding tongues. A hole in the center of this textile was cut at a later date, indicating that it may have been worn as a tunic. Condition: Fair overall. Side seams have been cut and the textile is open and flat. The overall woven structure remains intact, but there are some small losses in the dark areas.

Single interlock tapestry weave with cotton warps and camelid weft, with a thread count of more than 200 threads per inch. This miniature tunic with short sleeves was probably a ceremonial textile placed in the tomb of an important personage. The sleeves are too narrow for it to have served as a child's garment. The tunic is decorated with two vertical panels on the front and two on the back that contain composite figures in the act of running. Each figure has a human body, a puma head with condor feathers, and carries a staff terminating in a condor head. The figures are tan, red, blue, yellow, white, purple, and brown on a yellow ground. The remaining parts of the shirt are simple tan panels with red stripes as well as a border at each side containing condor motifs. There is an embroidered rectangular section at the neck. The garment is moderately unstable due to age-related deterioration. Both cotton and camelid fiber in the object have thinned and dried with age. The weaving is very fine and is a visible reminder of how important the person who owned this tunic must have been in Wari society, which was centered in southern Peru. The imagery on this textile relates very closely to the carvings found on the Gateway of the Sun at Tiwanaku near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. It is not precisely known how the imagery migrated to the Wari Empire and it is difficult to discern as no textiles were preserved at Tiwanaku where the climate is inhospitable for perishable items such as cloth.

Gift of Ernest Erickson

Gift of Ernest Erickson

Textile fragment with squares of repeating camelid figures in a checkered pattern. Size: adult. Probable wearer: male or undetermined. Vertical cotton warp. Cotton and camelid fiber weft. Reinforced tapestry, reversible. Design: animal with curled tail (AR).

Gift of Ernest Erickson

Gift of Ernest Erickson