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.
Cotton, camelid fibers
100 B.C.E.-1 C.E.
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)
A. Augustus Healy Fund
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".
This item is not on view
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)
component, 33.570b_front_PS5.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2015
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