The Development of Andean Textile Dying Technology

Summary

Textiles have always had great social significance in the Andes. They were used to expressed identity and power as well as position and function within society. Intensive investment in textile technologies yielded some of the best such artifacts of the ancient world. While spinning and weaving produced fine garments, it was colors—achieved primarily through the use of brilliant organic dyes—that constituted the major visual qualities of Andean textiles. A limited number of studies exist that investigate Andean dye technology, its development and the changes that resulted from the domestication of dye plants and insects, new trade networks and the subsequent exchange of designs and ideas. We present data from hundreds of textiles to cover a broad temporal and geographical range. Some of the data summarize published analytical work on Andean dyes, but most result from our work in the past two decades. We use the entire dataset to explore changes in dying preferences and technologies, and their relationships to general cultural and technological traits across the ancient Andes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Textile Technologies of Prehispanic Mesoamerica and the Andes

Keywords

Spatial Coverage