Textile Fragment With Three Frontal Deities And Interlace Pattern

Textile Fragment with Three Frontal Deities and Interlace Pattern, 700 - 400 BC. These two textile fragments, both made by weavers of the Paracas culture, are important in several respects. They are among the earliest surviving textiles from Peru and document precocious experiments in double-cloth that, among other things, allows the creation of areas of pure, undiluted colour. They also record an early devotion to abstraction and to feline imagery: both feature highly geometricized wild cats, animals that seem to have held special status in Paracas society. Finally, these fragments may demonstrate a fascination with the structure of cloth itself: the interlace motifs may be images of yarns twisted in either the S (\) or the Z (/) direction. Both fragments belonged to larger textiles of an unknown type and function. Creator Unknown. (Photo by Heritage Arts/Heritage Images via Getty Images)