False Face for Funerary Bundle

This rectangular panel of woven cotton is surmounted by a long fringe that has been twisted and knotted. The panel has been painted with a geometric border of triangles and a central anthropomorphic figure. The figure features body paint, including a serpent on the nose, hooked elements emerging from the lower eyelid, and a large bird on its torso. Seven serpent-like designs emerge from the head of the figure and birds, s-scrolls, and one feline fill in the empty fields around the figure. A shorter fringed border frames the main panel.

This panel of painted cotton likely once adorned a mummy bundle on the South Coast of Peru in the area known as Ocucaje. These panels, often decorated with anthropomorphic figures, would serve as false faces, draped over the head area of the mummy bundle as it was interred. Offerings to the deceased ancestors also included mantles which were wrapped around the body, sometimes placed inside ceramic urns. Caches of miniature objects have also been found in Ocucaje urn burials.

The coast of Peru between the waters of the Pacific Ocean and the abrupt rising of the Andes Mountains is very narrow and extremely dry. The aridity of the land preserved many perishable archaeological remains. The southern coast is the driest in Peru, and since the mid-nineteenth century many antiquities made of organic materials have been unearthed there. The Ica and Nasca valleys and the desolate Paracas peninsula have yielded significant groups of textiles, wood objects, and other works of perishable substances.