Paracas Art and Architecture: Object and Context in South Coastal Peru.

Paracas Art and Architecture: Object and Context in South Coastal Peru. The textile finds at the sites on the arid Paracas Peninsula Paracas is the name of a desert peninsula located in the Paracas District of the Pisco Province in the Ica Region, on the south coast of Peru. It was home to the Paracas culture, an important Andean society between approximately 750 BCE and 100 CE. on thesouth coast of Peru are, as Anne Paul notes in her introduction to thisbook, 'one of the most spectacular finds in the history of Andeanarchaeology', the glitter of Sipan's gold notwithstanding. Thebrilliant colours of these textiles and their complex naturalistic andmythological iconography were never surpassed by later textile artistsof the Andes. The major excavations were made by Julio C. Tello Julio Cesar Tello (b. April 11, 1880, Huarochir�� Province — d. June 7, 1947) was a Peruvian archaeologist.[1] He is considered to have been the first Peruvian archeologist to treat archaeological sites in a scientific manner. andTorribio Mejia Xesspe for the Museo Nacional in the late 1920s. Thearticle by Richard Daggett, which forms chapter 2 of the volume underreview, provides a useful summary of the major events, both clandestineand scientific, surrounding the recovery of these materials, based onmany not easily accessible sources. The sheer volume of the material recovered from the site has madeanalysis and publication an overwhelming task, and although theexcavators eventually published two large reports, and some of theircollaborators also published shorter works, there remains much more thatcould be said. Anne Paul has taken the lead in the present generation instudying the Paracas collections in the National Museum in Lima torecover what additional information it may be possible to obtain. Thisvolume contains a series of articles by her and others on their recentresearch. Of the four articles that focus specifically on the Paracastextiles, the one by Paul, which details the contents of mummy bundle89, and the one by Mary Frame, which explores the iconography andtechnique of the oblique interlaced headbands, are the most important.Both present previously unpublished material and offer enlighteninginterpretations. Paul's commentary provides insight into the socialcontext in which the embroideries were made, while Frame's relatesthe headbands to general modes of Andean thought. The articles byKathryn Jakes and Ann Peters, on the other hand, contain little newinformation, and that little open to question. However, Peters'presentation of candidates for the identification of the animal speciesrepresented in the iconography at least lays out the information in sucha way that readers can make up their own minds. The remainder of the volume is devoted to an examination of thebroader context of the Paracas finds, extending to the entire EarlyHorizon and beginning of the Early Intermediate Period on the southcoast (roughly the 1st millennium BC). Anne Paul introduces the bookwith a history of the pertinent archaeological activity and listing ofthe available evidence, outlining the controversies of interpretation.Though Paul makes a valiant attempt to sort through the issue of theabsolute dating Absolute dating is the process of determining a specific date for an archaeological or palaeontological site or artifact. Some archaeologists prefer the terms chronometric or calendar of the Early Horizon, new radiocarbon measurements withgood associations from the Ica valley are really needed. In terms of the stylistic seriation of the ceramics of this period,however, we are fortunate to have a detailed sequence by Dorothy Menzel,John H. Rowe and Lawrence E. Dawson published in 1964. The basicvalidity of this sequence has been accepted by virtually everyoneworking on this material, although there are some who question theexistence of those phases not yet represented by archaeologicalassociation AssociationAssociation in archaeology has more than one meaning and is confusing to the layman. Archaeology has been critiqued as a soft science with a somewhat poor standardization of terms. units. However, their disbelief does not make the ceramicsassigned to these phases disappear. The first two phases have been thesubject of the most scepticism, yet Helaine Silverman illustrates a bowlin this volume (figure 8.10) that John Rowe pointed out to me has ashape more like the bowl assigned to phase 1 (Menzel et al. 1964: figure9b) than like those of phase 3. In addition, he has told me that he wasshown two looted cemeteries on the Hacienda Cahuachi where he recordedsome pottery probably contemporary with phase 1 and some perhapsearlier. The chief controversy surrounding Paracas is the question of whatpolitical relationship the people who embroidered the textiles and madethe thin modelled ceramics (called Topara) that were found with theembroideries had to the people who made the incised resin-paintedpottery usually called Paracas and the subsequent Nasca styleslippainted pottery. Silverman provides a useful summary of thearchaeological evidence based on a great variety of sources, and alsoincludes some speciments from her own excavations. She suggests,rightly, that more work is needed in order to resolve the questionsraised, though I would add that more detailed publication of earlierexcavations would help too. Sarah Massey's article presents her data from surface surveyin the Ica valley, with particular focus on the Callango basin in thelower part of the valley (including the only mention of architecture inthe book). Her information on Callango is welcome, but her conclusionthat it played a leading political role is open to question. Forexample, she is unaware of the great fortified fortified (fôrt´fīd),adj containing additives more potent than the principal ingredient. phase 8 site on CerroPrieto (Menzel 1971: 77--8) and does not consider that the modernirrigation irrigation,in agriculture, artificial watering of the land. Although used chiefly in regions with annual rainfall of less than 20 in. (51 cm), it is also used in wetter areas to grow certain crops, e.g., rice. of the upper and middle valley has probably buried ordestroyed many sites in these areas, while preserving sites in Callango(Menzel et al. 1964: 7--8). Her evidence also does not negate the factthat the fancy phase 8 burial pottery from the neighbouring basin ofOcucaje has the degree of stylistic and iconographic innovation thatMenzel et al. suggest, and thus Ocucaje still appears to be the place oforigin of the iconography of the Oculate Being, which is so prominent inthe Paracas textiles. A final article by Dwight Wallace discusses the Chavin stylepainted textiles reportedly found at the site of Carhua on the southcoast, using both drawings of their designs and technical analysis oftheir ground fabrics. The technical analysis enables him to deduce thatthe fabrics were produced both on the south coast and elsewhere, and intwo chronological phases. These findings are both important, although heassumes that the fabrics were painted by the people who wove wove?v.Past tense of weave.woveVerba past tense of weavewove, woven weave them, whichneed not have been the case. In sum, this volume will be especially useful for those wanting ageneral orientation to the archaeological literature on Paracas and forthose seriously interested in ancient textiles. ANN POLLARD ROWE The Textile Museum, Washington (DC) References MENZEL, D. 1971. Estudios arqueologicos en los Valles de Ica,Pisco Pisco(pēs`kō), city (1993 pop. 53,714), capital of Pisco prov., SW Peru, a port on the Pacific Ocean. The major industries are the production of the famous Pisco brandy, the cultivation and processing of cotton, and commercial fishing. , Chincha y Canete, Arqueologia y Sociedad 6. Lima: UniversidadNacional Mayor de San Marcos. MENZEL, D., J.H. ROWE & L.E. DAWSON. 1964. The Paracas potteryof Ica: a study in style and time. Berkeley (CA): University ofCalifornia Press "UC Press" redirects here, but this is also an abbreviation for University of Chicago PressUniversity of California Press, also known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. . University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). Publication in AmericanArchaeology and Ethnology ethnology(ĕthnŏl`əjē), scientific study of the origin and functioning of human cultures. It is usually considered one of the major branches of cultural anthropology, the other two being anthropological archaeology and 50.