Cordage and Binding Practices: From Artifacts to Bodies to Bundles in the Paracas Necropolis Mortuary Tradition

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Paracas Necropolis mortuary tradition is famous for its embroidered garments and imagery, though the textile bundles built around each individual also have a complex sequence of other artifacts within huge cotton wrapping cloths, stitched and bound in place; other offerings are adjacent. Cordage is used to position the bodies of the deceased, and to unite diverse artifact components. Production practices for cords and other bindings include raw materials sourcing and processing to create structures employed for specific purposes. What may be the significance of raw materials, such as reeds, animal tissue, bast fiber, cotton, or human hair? Binding materials with different properties are employed in groups of artifacts that share forms of utility, such as types of weapons and feather ornaments. Was the organization of artifact production linked to their subsequent uses in hunting, combat or ritual, and social leadership within those realms? The mortuary data most directly reflect funerary practices and subsequent events to honor the dead. As cordage was both created and utilized as part of the ritual process, we can consider its relationship to sequences of postmortem events, social diversity in the cemetery population and the contributors to each tomb assemblage. ***Images include human remains.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Ties That Bind: Cordage, Its Sources, and the Artifacts of Its Creation and Use   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38151.0