Eight hundred years before the rise of the Inca, the Wari Empire flourished in Peru’s central highlands and coastal regions. The Wari left no written language, but their sophisticated ceramics, metal ornaments and textiles offer clues to their civilization and culture.
Tunics are the largest and most complex Wari artifacts to have been found. They feature distinctive, abstract imagery and intriguing compositions of color and pattern achieved through weft-faced tapestry weave. These finely woven garments required significant resources to make: Each one uses seven to 18 miles of carefully prepared camelid fiber.
Tunics like this one were worn by powerful individuals with military associations. The “face-fret” motif — one of the most common Wari patterns — is associated with conflict and death. Repeated in squares both vertically and horizontally, it consists of a stylized face with a mouth and vertically-divided eye opposite a fret motif. Numerical and symmetry systems inform the repetition of the squares, while color repeats diagonally, adding complexity.
The Wari used clothing to show their status and identity. The authority of a Wari elite derived from his or her perceived access to the sacred realm. Ritual feasts, a major part of the Wari economy, were occasions for high-status hosts and guests to show off their hierarchal rank and supernatural connections through costume.
The Wari archeological site Pikillacta, just south of Cusco, Peru. © marktucan/iStock.com.
