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In Discover (April, 2001), Heather Pringle wrote: "The Inca were cloth makers, the likes of whom Europe had never known. Inca weavers made bridges from cords, wove roofs from fibers, and counted their wealth not in scribbles on a page but in patterns of knots on woolen strands. And they wove a woolen fabric from the fleece of the alpaca, a small, slender member of the camel family, that was so soft and alluring it was prized above almost all else in the highland empire centered in what is now Peru. Among the people of the Andes, cloth was currency. Inca emperors rewarded the loyalty of their nobles with gifts of soft fabric made by expert weavers. They gave away stacks of fine woolen textiles to assuage the pride of defeated lords. They paid their armies in silky smooth material. For an emperor intent on glory, as most Inca emperors were, cloth making was a major enterprise of state. The imperial textile warehouses were so precious that Inca armies deliberately set them afire when retreating from battle, depriving their enemies of that which made them strong." What can we learn about ancient Andean societies by studying the textiles they produced? What can we deduce about the chronology of historical events? About the movement of people and ideas? About agriculture, technology, trade, gender roles? About war and peace? We will ask Dr. Irene Good, who works at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, where she is in charge of preserving and interpreting one of the world's largest collection of pre-Colombian textiles. For more information, see:
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