Created with a wide variety of weaving techniques incorporating wool and cotton thread in natural or dyed tones, the majority of textiles exhibited here were recovered from burial places found in archeological sites in the most arid regions of the Andean Pacific coast. The pieces are attributed to the Siguas III (AD 150–700), the Huaris (AD 700–1000), the Chimus (AD 1200–1450), the Chancays (AD 1200–1450), and the Incas (AD 1430–1452)—populations that once occupied the present-day territories of Peru and Bolivia.
For over a century, Andean archeological artifacts have been attracting the interest of specialists, collectors, and dealers. However, metalwork (gold, silver, and gilded copper), ceramics, and stone pieces with refined surfaces have always been the most popular. Textiles have often taken a back seat in collections; consequently, they are less known and have been less researched, even among experts. Nonetheless, gauzes, laces, painted textiles, vibrantly colored materials, and even feather pieces are recently drawing an increased interest among scholars who see them as evidence of gendered history, knowledge, expertise, and technique.
The research on these textiles, in line with the accounts of indigenous populations that currently inhabit the Andean region, reveal that textile production has always been a practice shared by women and is the result of traditions immersed in knowledge and conventions that have been transmitted across the last 3,000 years. Archeological data also shows us that female Andean weavers enjoyed higher status in the hierarchies of political and religious power, mainly in the centuries prior to the arrival of the Spanish colonizers. These women’s magnificent textiles, along with their weaving machines and other work tools, are frequently found in temples and other prestigious sites, often in the elaborate graves of the ruling elite. As a group, the exhibited textiles evidence the cultural and technological diversity of the indigenous people of South America before the European invasion.
— Márcia Arcuri, curadora adjunta de arte pré‑colombiana, MASP, 2019