EVEN BETTER THAN TODAY'S TEXTILES
People living long ago on the hot coastal strip of Peru created some of the
world's most beautiful textiles. Archaeologists have found an amazing quantity of
these in "mummy bundles" tucked away in tombs. These ancient people of the
Andean region, like those of Egypt, believed the dead needed articles from this life
to use in their future life. Some fragments of the cloth are 3,000 years old, but the
finest examples belong to the period between about AD 300 and 1000. The people
who wove these textiles spun fine, smooth yarn of cotton or of the wool of alpacas,
llamas, and vicunas. They used most weaves known today and some too
complicated for modern looms. They were expert dyers, with almost 200 hues at
their command. With their many-coloured yarns they worked out gay, elaborate
designs. They wove cloth ingeniously into the shapes of garments and other articles,
for they did not cut and sew.
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