Paracas Culture: Necropolis Burials and Textiles of Ancient Peru

The Paracas culture was an ancient society on the south coast of Peru that flourished from about 800 BC to about 100 BC. It is famous for the Paracas Necropolis, a desert cemetery where hundreds of bodies were buried as seated mummy bundles wrapped in richly embroidered textiles. These fabrics, together with Paracas skull shaping and early ground drawings, make the culture one of the key predecessors of the later Nasca civilisation.

Land and people

The Paracas Peninsula lies on one of the driest coasts on Earth, south of the modern city of Pisco. The Paracas people lived mainly in the nearby river valleys of Pisco and Ica, where they farmed cotton, maize, beans and squash with irrigation, and exploited the rich fisheries of the Pacific.

The culture is usually divided into an earlier phase, sometimes called Paracas Cavernas, and a later phase known as Paracas Necropolis. Early Paracas pottery shows clear influence from Chavín de Huántar, the great religious centre of the northern highlands. Paracas potters later developed a distinctive technique of painting vessels with resin-based colours after firing.

Discovery of the necropolis

The Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello, often called the father of Peruvian archaeology, began excavating on the peninsula in 1925 with Toribio Mejía Xesspe. On the hill of Cerro Colorado they found bottle-shaped shaft tombs cut into the rock, which Tello named the Cavernas.

In 1927 the team uncovered a second, larger cemetery, the Necropolis of Wari Kayan. It contained 429 mummy bundles, buried close together in the sand. Most of the bundles were taken to Lima, where many are still held by the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru.

The mummy bundles

The dead were placed in a seated, flexed position, often in a basket, and then wrapped in layer upon layer of cloth. Plain cotton sheets alternated with finely made garments: mantles, tunics, ponchos, turbans and small skirts. The largest bundles stood well over a metre high and contained dozens of garments, as well as gold ornaments, feathers, food and weapons.

The size and richness of a bundle seem to reflect the status of the person inside. Most of the elaborately wrapped individuals were adult men, which suggests that the necropolis served an elite group, possibly lineage leaders or ritual specialists.

Textiles of extraordinary skill

Paracas textiles are among the finest ever produced in the ancient Americas. Weavers used cotton grown on the coast and camelid fibre, from llama or alpaca, brought from the highlands and dyed in a wide range of colours. Scholars have identified well over a hundred shades on Paracas fabrics.

The best-known pieces are large mantles embroidered with repeated figures in stem stitch. These show flying or dancing beings, often holding staffs, fans or trophy heads, sometimes with animal features such as feline whiskers or bird wings. The textile historian Anne Paul showed that the order of colours and figures followed carefully planned patterns, and that a single mantle could represent thousands of hours of work.

In the 20th century many Paracas textiles left Peru through looting and illegal export. Some, including a collection held in Gothenburg, Sweden, have since been the subject of return agreements with Peru.

Skull shaping and trepanation

Many Paracas skulls are markedly elongated. This was achieved by binding the heads of infants with pads, cords or boards while the bones were still soft, a practice called intentional cranial modification. It was probably a sign of group identity or status, and similar customs are known from cultures across the world.

Paracas surgeons also practised trepanation, cutting or scraping an opening in the skull. Signs of bone regrowth show that a number of patients survived. The operation may have been used to treat head wounds from slings and clubs, which are common among skeletons of the period.

Myths and facts

The elongated skulls of Paracas have attracted claims that they belonged to a non-human species or to visitors from elsewhere. There is no scientific basis for these claims. The shapes match those produced by known head-binding methods, and the skeletons are those of ordinary humans.

Another popular idea links the huge figure on the peninsula’s northern slope, known as the Candelabra of Paracas, to this culture. Its age is uncertain and it has not been securely dated to the Paracas period.

Timeline

• c. 800 BC: Paracas culture emerges in the Ica and Pisco valleys.
• c. 600-400 BC: Cavernas-style shaft tombs are used on Cerro Colorado; Chavín influence appears in pottery.
• c. 400-200 BC: Paracas people make early geoglyphs and hillside figures in the Palpa area.
• c. 300-100 BC: Necropolis phase; the great textile-wrapped bundles are buried at Wari Kayan.
• c. 100 BC onward: Paracas traditions merge into the Nasca culture.
• 1925: Julio C. Tello begins excavations on the Paracas Peninsula.
• 1927: The Necropolis of Wari Kayan and its 429 bundles are uncovered.

Why it matters

The Paracas culture shows how a desert society on the Peruvian coast developed sophisticated art, medicine and ritual centuries before the Inca. Its textiles remain a benchmark of ancient craftsmanship, and its ground drawings and designs fed directly into the art of the Nasca, makers of the Nazca Lines.