Andean cotton weaving and backstrap loom
Tejido de algodón y telar de cintura andino (Paracas, Chavín)
- Date
- c. 1000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Paracas and Karwa, Ica, Peru
- Credited to
- Chavín and Paracas cultures
- Field
- Tools
What it is
Fabrics of native coloured cotton and camelid wool on a backstrap loom, with tapestry, brocade and gauze techniques and up to 200 threads per centimetre. In the Andes, textiles were the chief vehicle of wealth, communication and identity.
Huaca Prieta (c. 3000 BCE) already wove cotton without a loom; the innovation of this era is the heddle loom and polychromy.
What it led to
- The Paracas funerary mantles as an iconographic encyclopedia
- Textiles as currency, tribute and record (the basis of the quipu)
- Selective breeding of camelids for their fibre
- State textile production under the Wari and the Inca (acllas)
Built on
- Loom weaving and spindle whorlc. 6500 BCE
- Domesticated cotton (Gossypium barbadense)
- Cotton fishing nets (Huaca Prieta)