textile
- Museum number
- Am1975,13.1
- Description
-
Textile; large panel originally sewn to another? - (remains of whip stitching along one weft selvedge); cotton paired-warp plain weave ground cloth with applied paint. Dark brown paint used to outline double coiled snake motifs, one of which in each pair has a serrated body; small single S-shaped snakes are arranged in intervening spaces. At one end is row of stepped diamond motifs. Background areas are filled in with dark brown/red paint leaving snakes and diamonds standing out in the pale tan colour of natural cotton. Dark brown and tan.
- Production date
- 900-1430 (?)
- Dimensions
-
Length: 164 centimetres
-
Width: 64.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Register 1975:
Cotton. Brown and natural [dirty brown] painted textile, with a pattern of coiled serpents.
South America, Perú. Possibly Nazca.
-
McEwan, 2009 p. 14
Textile with snake motifs. Painted cotton. Chimu, Peru, 11th-12th century AD
Textiles and pottery from Peru's Pacific coast are frequently painted in muted hues that echo the austere palette of the desert landscape. Here, life depends on the annual replenishment of the rivers fed by meltwater and rain from their sources in the high Andes, and the swelling torrent filling a dry stream bed is sometimes likened to the body of the amaru - a feared semi-mythical snake-dragon that periodically descends from the mountains.The principal motif of a coiled pair of snakes is repeated in uniform rows. Each motif culminates in a central pair of opposed snake heads that might be read as an expression of the complementary oppositions that governed aspects of native Andean cosmology and social organisation. The 'stepped' cross' or chakana symbol appears on the left-hand side and is widely used in American cultures to signal sacred central places serving as a portal into the underworld below or celestial realm above.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2003 15 Dec-2009 Jun, BM, 'Living and Dying'
- Acquisition date
- 1975
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Am1975,13.1