Pair of Two: Contemporary Chancay Dolls from Peru made with ANCIENT Fabrics

Description

Approximately 9 and 8 inches tall respectively
The fabric on these dolls is anywhere from 559 to 1,019 years old!
“Chancay dolls” are folk art figures made by contemporary indigenous and Mestizo (mixed indigenous and Spanish) cultures of the Andean region in South America.
The figures are crafted using ancient cloth soft sculptures found in the graves of elite Chancay people, whose culture flourished in the central coastal desert region of Peru during the Late Intermediate period (1000-1460 CE).
This is not to say, however, that “Chancay dolls” are inauthentic or are counterfeit copies; they are easily distinguishable from the ancient figures because their facial features are embroidered onto the face rather than being woven into the fabric, and they are also openly produced and marketed as 20th and 21st century folk art.
A controversial aspect of contemporary “Chancay doll” figures is that they incorporate, or are even primarily composed of, fragments of ancient textiles.
Because the graves of ancient cultures in the Andean region have been terribly looted, broken remnants of artifacts and scraps of ancient textiles often litter the surface of burial grounds; local residents gather up the cloth remnants and use them to dress these figures.
While some would condemn the use of ancient fabrics, others see the practice of making the “Chancay dolls” as recycling scraps that are otherwise ignored and lost, transforming them into popular tourist-trade objects that also bring greatly needed revenue to poorer areas.
These appear to have been collected, circa 1980s, by an American Tourist and made their way back this way.
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