I hope everyone’s winter holiday season is going well and that the new year be all you need it to be. For this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week we got a viscacha figure/effigy. I love these because viscachas are sooo cute! (I’ve included a picture of a live viscacha below for those of us less familiar with what exactly one looks like.)

Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology, Harvard University. https://peabody.harvard.edu/ Request reproduction rights from https://peabody.harvard.edu/rights-and-reproductions
Object: Viscachas effigy
Description: Worked in yellow and dark brown yarn, the figure includes the pointed ears, nose, and long tail of a viscacha. Overall: 7.5 x 1 x 1.7 cm (2 15/16 x 3/8 x 11/16 in.)1
Dated to: Early Intermediate period
Nazca2
Find location: Nazca, Peru3
Material: camelid4
Stitch(es) used: Looping.5 S-crossed and Z-crossed Simple Looping depending on which part of the viscacha (as determined by Anne Marie Decker based on the photograph)
Object number: 46-77-30/7651C
Current location: Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University
Link to museum catalog or other data: https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/100405?ctx=4b5a04a42bb2e1beb986339955f300990aa07639&idx=62
Pictures:

Photo: Alexandre Buisse (Nattfodd), CC BY-SA 3.0
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- https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/100405?ctx=4b5a04a42bb2e1beb986339955f300990aa07639&idx=62 ↩︎
- https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/100405?ctx=4b5a04a42bb2e1beb986339955f300990aa07639&idx=62. Estimated to 200 BCE to 600 CE as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodization_of_pre-Columbian_Peru ↩︎
- https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/100405?ctx=4b5a04a42bb2e1beb986339955f300990aa07639&idx=62 ↩︎
- https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/100405?ctx=4b5a04a42bb2e1beb986339955f300990aa07639&idx=62 ↩︎
- https://collections.peabody.harvard.edu/objects/details/100405?ctx=4b5a04a42bb2e1beb986339955f300990aa07639&idx=62 ↩︎
It’s a chinchbil! A chinchilla gerbil…