Paracas Peru
The Paracas culture was an important Andean society between approximately 600 BCE and 175 BCE, with an extensive knowledge of irrigation and water management. It developed in the Paracas Peninsula, located in what today is the Paracas District of the Pisco Province in the Ica Region. Most of our information about the lives of the Paracas people comes from excavations at the large seaside Paracas necropolis, first investigated by the Peruvian archaeologist Julio Tello in the 1920s. The necropolis of Wari Kayan consisted of multitudes of large subterranean burial chambers, with an average capacity of about forty mummies. It is suggested that each large chamber might have been owned by a specific family or clan, using it for many generations. Each mummy was bound with cord to hold it in place, and then wrapped in many layers of intricate, ornate, and finely woven textiles. These textiles are now known as some of the finest ever produced by Pre-Columbian Andean societies, and are the primary works of art by which Paracas is known.
A case of skulls from the Andean Paracas culture, as seen in the Museo Nacional de Arqueología Antropología e Historia del Perú in Lima, Peru.
Paracas Art and Architecture: Object and Context in South Coastal Peru by Anne Paul, Publisher: University Of Iowa Press, 1991 ISBN 0877453276
Ancient Peruvian Textiles by Ferdinand Anton, Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 1987, ISBN 0500014027
Textile art of Peru by Jose Antoni Lavalle, Publisher: Textil Piura in the Textile (January 1, 1989),
