Vessel with Marine Beings

On the arid coastal plain of southern Peru arose a culture that was to become one of the most famous in the prehistory of that country. Between roughly 200 BC and AD 600, the people inhabiting the Nazca River system made textiles and ceramics that were of the highest technical and artistic quality. Thanks to the desert climate, many of these objects were well preserved and can be seen in museums much as they appeared to the people who made them nearly two thousand years ago. Among the finest …

Polychrome ceramics and bright-hued textiles characterize the southern regions of the central Andes as decisively as bichrome pottery and large urban groupings do the ancient civilizations of northern Peru. Such many-coloured vessels, and the textiles, were traditional products as early as the fifth century B.C. These southern regions extend from the Cañete Valley on the Pacific Coast of Peru, east and south to Bolivia, the north-west Argentine, and northern Chile. As in the rest of Peru, the …