Chancay Woven Textile Sling

Pre-Columbian era, Chancay culture, 1000-1470AD, Peru.

Superb sling made out of cabuya fiber and camelid fiber accents. The long fiber banded cord is woven in thick strands in a dark brown, and beige with a center separating support for holding a stone. The user could hurl large stones with a vicious bone breaking force by spinning the sling around the head and quickly releasing it. 

The Chancay were a pre-Columbian archaeological civilization which developed between the valleys of Fortaleza, Pativilca, Supe, Huaura, Chancay, Chillón, Rimac and Lurin, on the central coast of Peru from c. 1000AD-1470AD. The major artistic achievement for which the Chancay are know is their mastery of textiles. Textiles were an essential form of symbolism to convey meaning, status, gender, wealth, and spirituality. Chancay weavers specialized particularly in delicate gauze work. They used an array of colours including yellows, browns, scarlet, white, blues and greens. In type of fabric used include llama wool, cotton, chiffon and feathers. The typically geometric designs also included drawings of plants, animals such as fish, cats, birds, monkey and dogs, as well as human figures. Canvases or gauzes were used primarily for religious and magical purposes. They were made for covering the head of the dead in the form of headdresses. In keeping with their burial customs, members of the Chancay society wrapped the corpses of their dead in many layers of cloth and buried them deep in the ground along with various goods. 

Good condition. Age-related wear, loose threads and fraying. Rich earthen deposits. The ends lack the finger loop. Size approx. 130,0cm x 2,0cm x 0,5cm. 

Provenance: Former collection of the archaeologist Ferdinand Anton, Germany, combined between 1950 and 1965. Ferdinand Anton was born in 1929 in Munich, Germany. He made a living by writing richly illustrated books about the art objects and religious rituals of Pre-Columbian cultures: the Aztecs, the Maya, and Andean peoples of South America. He was an explorer who flew to South America and Mexico, and hiked to remote shrines where few Westerners had set foot. He wrote more than forty books.

For a similar examples see:

Sling, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Accession Number: 1994.35.103 (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/316928)

Sling, Princeton University Art Museum, Accession number: 1995-376 (https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/4624)