Paracas. Textile Fragment with Skeletal Figure, 100 B.C.E.–1 C.E. Cotton, camelid fibers, frag. a: 7 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. (19.1 x 22.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, 33.570a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 33.570b_front_PS5.jpg)
Paracas. Textile Fragment with Skeletal Figure, 100 B.C.E.–1 C.E. Cotton, camelid fibers, frag. a: 7 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. (19.1 x 22.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, 33.570a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 33.570a_front_PS5.jpg)
Textile Fragment with Skeletal Figure
Arts of the Americas
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.
CULTURE
Paracas
MEDIUM
Cotton, camelid fibers
DATES
100 B.C.E.–1 C.E.
DIMENSIONS
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) (show scale)
COLLECTIONS
Arts of the Americas
ACCESSION NUMBER
33.570a-b
CREDIT LINE
A. Augustus Healy Fund
CATALOGUE 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".
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Paracas. Textile Fragment with Skeletal Figure, 100 B.C.E.–1 C.E. Cotton, camelid fibers, frag. a: 7 1/2 x 8 3/4 in. (19.1 x 22.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, A. Augustus Healy Fund, 33.570a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 33.570b_front_PS5.jpg)
IMAGE
component, 33.570b_front_PS5.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2015
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