Collection record · Dress & textiles
Mummy Bundle "Mask"
The collection record classifies this work as textile. It is dated 400–200 BCE. Recorded culture or place: Peru, South Coast, Ica Valley, Ocucaje site, Paracas style (700 BCE–1 CE).
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A closer look at the details.
- Museum title
- Mummy Bundle "Mask"
- Date
- 400–200 BCE
- Culture / origin
- Peru, South Coast, Ica Valley, Ocucaje site, Paracas style (700 BCE–1 CE)
- Materials and technique
- cotton and pigment, plain weave
- Dimensions
- Overall: 58.4 x 21 cm (23 x 8 1/4 in.)
- Artist / maker
- Not specified by the museum
- Museum
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Accession number
- 1940.524
FROM THE MUSEUM
In the museum’s words
The following description is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original English record.
The Paracas people buried their dead in bundles that they created by carefully wrapping the seated human body in layers of garments and other textiles. In some cases, they placed a painted cloth—such as these examples—on the outer layer and at the top of the bundle. The hair-like yarns (unwoven warps) were arranged around a solid cotton disk that was sometimes wrapped with a headband. The cloths, then, seem to have functioned as the bundle’s head, even though some are painted not with faces but with complete figures whose supernatural character is marked by the appendages streaming from their bodies.
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Text and image sources
The Cleveland Museum of Art · The Norweb Collection · CC0
The summary is based on public collection data. Refer to the museum’s latest record for the title, date and attribution.
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