Detail of Chimú mantle

The first examples of textiles in the Andes were already representing designs in an emerging artistic style. Parallel to its function as a status marker in life and death, textiles served as the media for a very rich and complex iconography, illustrating elements of the natural landscape, supernatural deities, and others of apparent human character. These images become more frequent in the late coastal styles, in objects like weaves, loincloths and ceremonial mantles. This detail corresponds to a Chimú mantle, and it depicts two individuals that carry a third on a litter. These figures were embroidered on a plain weave, evidence of a schematic appearance proper of structural techniques of decoration. The headdress, ear spools, and the rest of elements that surround these figures suggest that they could be divinities and simultaneously their incarnation in life: political chiefs, which as sign of power, would have indeed shown costumes adorned with this type of representation.