Tunic with Sacrificer (600–1000): Art, History and Details

Tunic with Sacrificer (600–1000) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A highly abstract supernatural sacrificer repeats in different colors and orientations across the body of this tunic, which was shortened on one side in antiquity. Look for the toothy black-and-white mouth in the sacrificer's upward-gazing head; other facial features include a button nose and a vertically divided eye. The figure holds the L-shaped handle of an axe behind its back and, at the front of its body, a short staff with a severed, upside-down human head on the top.

Object facts

• Title: Tunic with Sacrificer
• Date: 600–1000
• Culture: South America, Peru, Central Andes, Wari people, Middle Horizon era, 7th–11th century
• Type: Textile
• Technique: camelid fiber, cotton: tapestry weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 202.6 x 112 cm (79 3/4 x 44 1/8 in.)
• Collection: T - Pre-Columbian
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 2007.179

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bergh, Susan E., Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, and Luis Jaime Castillo. Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes. [New York]: Thames & Hudson; [Cleveland] : The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.