page_title: Chancay culture
section_title: Textiles
hierarchical_section_title: Chancay culture / Textiles
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA. This work is old enough so that it is in the public domain.
context_page_description: The Chancay were a pre-Columbian archeological civilization which developed between the valleys of Fortaleza, Pativilca, Supe, Huaura, Chancay, Chillón, Rimac and Lurín, on the central coast of Peru, from about CE 1000 to 1470.
context_section_description: The most well-known Chancay artefacts are the textiles which ranged from embroidered pieces, different types of fabrics decorated with paint. A variety of techniques, colours and themes were used in the making of textiles. They used an array of colours including yellows, browns, scarlet, white, blues and greens.
  In type of fabric used include llama wool, cotton, chiffon and feathers. Their technique involved were decorated open weave, brocade, embroidery, and painting. Brushes were used to paint anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, geometric and other creative designs directly on the canvases. The Chancay are known for the quality of their painted tapestries. The typically geometric designs also included drawings of plants, animals such as fish, cats, birds, monkeys and dogs (most notably the hairless Peruvian dog) as well as human figures. Some of the human fiber sculptures are elaborate and include such scenes as a mother teaching her daughter to weave on a backstrap loom. Birds and deities wearing crescent-like headdresses were one of the more common decorative features. They produced a variety of goods such as clothing, bags, and funeral masks.
  Many Chancay textiles survive to date. It is believed that their production was quite extensive, due to the quantities that have been preserved. The quality of the textile material appears to be good as they were carefully made.
  Canvases or gauzes were used primarily for religious and magical purposes. They were made for covering the head of the dead in the form of a headdresses. According to the beliefs of the time, the threads on these fabrics had to be spun in the form of an "S" in an anticlockwise direction. This thread, which had a magical character, was called lloque and, according to legend, the garments were infused with supernatural powers and served as protection in the afterlife. Feathers were inserted into a main thread which was then sewn onto the fabric.
  The Chancay also manufactured dolls and other objects covered with pieces of woven fabric and various threads.
caption: Mantle border fragment of funerary cloth with anthropomorphic feline figures
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