This miniature scoop has a net made from hide sinew laced across the hoop. It is a model of the ice scoops used around seal holes.

Whale spear model, light wood with bone ends.

Whale spear model, light wood with bone ends.

Gift of Sidney Weiner and Harry Hurdy

Wooden mirror handle with carvings that portray a well-dressed individual, standing on a small pedestal, holding a trophy head in each hand. The individual wears a tunic with sleeves, a crescent-shaped headdress, and a collar with a serpent head. On the figure's tunic, headdress, legs, and elsewhere are triangles in relief. On the handle, collar, and headdress are turquoise bead inlays. Around the inlays are traces of red pigment. The eyes of the central figure as well as the eyes of the trophy heads are inlaid with thin sheets of gold that are covered over with red pigment. In the back of the carving is a shallow circular cavity which probably held a pyrite mirror. Condition: The front of the proper left side of the handle is damaged; the headdress of the central figure is chipped, broken, and repaired; the tunic has two gouges; the hair of each trophy head is chipped along the edges; the end of the handle is cracked. The object reveals overall surface wear.

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.

Size: miniature. Probable wearer: female. Vertical camelid fiber warp. Camelid fiber weft. Camelid fiber crossed looping and other embellishment. Weft-faced plain weave with bands of complementary weft, float weave (reversible).

Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund

Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund

Museum Expedition 1941, Frank L. Babbott Fund