NOW: Purple & White cap with Bird MAK/AS/P.70

Continuing the purple theme, this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week returns to Peru with another figural topped hat. This time we have a single bird topping a purple and white/natural striped child’s cap made of wool and cotton.

Object: Purple & White cap with Bird

Description: A small purple cap with two white/cream stripes of equal thickness that has a bird worked also in Simple Looping perched on top.

Dated to: 1000–1476 CE (Chancay culture)¹

Find location: Necropolis of Ancon, Peru²

Material: wool and cotton³

Stitch(es) used: S-Crossed Simple Looping,⁴ B1 U, worked from the top to the brim (stitch determined from photograph by Anne Marie Decker)

Inventory number: MAK/AS/P.70 (received as a gift from the collection of Władysław Kluger from 1876.)

Current location: Krzysztof Babraj (Archaeological Museum in Kraków)

Link to museum catalog or other data: https://muzea.malopolska.pl/en/objects-list/661

Photographs (if permissions allow): There is an omnidirectional view on the museum’s website where you can rotate the hat.

ECHO Historical Textile posted some beautiful photos of the cap (conserved? reconstructed?) on display that is clearly visibly purple and has less damage to the bird.

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1. https://muzea.malopolska.pl/en/objects-list/661 Accessed 27 May 2024 ↩︎
2. https://muzea.malopolska.pl/en/objects-list/661 Accessed 27 May 2024 ↩︎
3. https://muzea.malopolska.pl/en/objects-list/661 Accessed 27 May 2024. It says wool and cotton, but does not specify the animal from which the “wool” was obtained. ↩︎
4. The museum catalog currently misidentifies the technique as “crochet, handsewing,” but the photos clearly show that it is S-crossed Simple Looping. ↩︎