Fragment
1000-1476
Medium
Cotton and wool (camelid), bands of weft faced plain weave, and slit tapestry weave with wrapping outlining wefts
Dimensions
41 × 40.3 cm (16 1/8 × 15 7/8 in.)
Classification
weaving
Department
Textiles
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
85474
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The quality and variety of Chancay textiles, which include both woven and painted designs, demonstrate the importance of the medium to this culture. Here, rows of venomous scorpions scurry across wide yellow bands. The Chancay associated these nocturnal arachnids with death, war, and the supernatural, and they may allude to the power of ruling warriors.
About the Artist
Chancay
The Chancay were a pre-Columbian culture that flourished along the central coast of Peru, in the valleys of the Huaura, Chancay, Chillón, and surrounding rivers, from approximately 1000 to 1470 CE. Emerging after the decline of the Wari civilization, the Chancay developed a distinctive artistic identity that set them apart from their Andean contemporaries, one defined above all by extraordinary ma...