Cleveland Museum of Art

Mummy Bundle "Mask"

Date

200–1 BCE

Medium

plain warp-faced cloth, painted: cotton

Culture

Peru, South Coast, Ica Valley, Ocucaje site, Paracas style (700 BCE–1 CE)

Department

Textiles

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Paracas people of Peru's South Coast buried their dead in pear-shaped mummy bundles made of a seated human body carefully wrapped in garments and other textiles. Sometimes a painted cloth was placed at the top of the bundle, as though it served as the bundle's face, head, or "mask." The cloth was padded on the back so it curved outward like a face, and the tress-like yarns (unwoven warps) at the upper edge were arranged around a solid cotton disk that, in turn, was wrapped with a headband. Some cloths were painted with mask-like faces, and others with full figures, apparently mythical creatures. These masks fall into two categories, those with only a face and those with a full-bodied figure.

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