Fragments of a tunic

The two fragments of the same tunic, woven for members of the male elites, are divided into two vertical decorative registers and show winged figures with zoomorphic staffs, resembling those flanking the “God of the Staffs” in the Sun Gate of Tiahuanaco, Bolivia.
In the right fragment (with reference to the viewer) the figures appear, from top to the bottom, in the same order as in the Sun Gate: anthropomorphic-headed figures, ornithomorphic-headed figure (condor), anthropomorphic-headed figure. Unlike on the monument, here the anthropomorphic heads seem to assume rather pardianthropic (or llama) characters and the ornithomorphic heads look to the right. In the registers of the left fragment, both the series and the direction of the characters are reversed.
This fabric represents an excellent example of how the stylistic features of Huari-Tiahuanaco art rest on prevalent iconographic motifs through processes of stylization, geometrization and distortion of striking modernity.