The ties that bind – color, structure and meaning on miniature tupu cords

Author(s): Colin McEwan

Year: 2016

Summary

Andean tupus (cloak pins) recovered from archaeological contexts often have a single perforation in the middle of the head. This suggests that they were connected by a woven cord and worn in pairs, an observation that is corroborated by ethno-historic accounts as well as contemporary ethnography. There are also some surviving examples of miniature tupus connected by miniature woven cords from capac hucha burials. This presentation describes and analyses one such example from the British Museum collections which incorporates 13 paired tocapu designs.

Cite this Record

The ties that bind – color, structure and meaning on miniature tupu cords. Colin McEwan. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Orlando, Florida. 2016 ( tDAR id: 403313)

Keywords

Geographic Keywords
South America

Spatial Coverage

min long: -93.691; min lat: -56.945 ; max long: -31.113; max lat: 18.48 ;