Long before the Inka civilization, some 11,500 years before, plant fibers were woven to produce basketry by indigenous people of Peru. Weaving of fabrics using wool from camelids, Alpaca, Vicuna and Llama, and cotton dates back more than 5000 years. Techniques employed by the ancient cultures exhibited almost all of the known types of weavings and were considered more important to the ancient Andean peoples than was silver or gold. Wealth was shown in the numbers of textiles owned by the ruling classes. Vibrant natural colors derived from insects, plants, and soils, produced stunning abstractions representing religious and cultural beliefs. Because of the dry arid conditions along the coast of Peru, many textiles used to wrap mummies have survived for up to 3000 years, from the Paracas culture (800 BC to 100 BC) right through the Inka Empire (1438 -1533). The better known cultures that developed before the Inka included the Nazca (famous for the enormous Nazca Lines that cover miles of the desert representing birds, animals, dieties, and geometric images that are only visible from above), the Chavin (that lived at the same time as Paracas), Moche, Chimu, Chincha, and Lambayeque. All of them had unique styles and all of them preserved their dead through mummification, heavily wrapped, sometimes with hundreds of textiles to represent their significance. Tremendous research over the last century has unfolded numerous mysteries about the ancient Peruvian cultures and sub cultures and many more have been recently discovered, including the Siguas, which prior to the late 1980'2 were considered a subculture of the Nazca, but are now believed to have been unique from Nazca. Their culture spanned almost 1200 years in the Arequipa Valley near Lake Titicaca in Southern Peru from about 500 ice to 700 bc. This camelid textile is comprised of 26 long woven straps sewn together to form a mantle, or shawl, and displays classic Siguas designs and colors of the late Siguas culture(100be - 700 be), and measure 61 x 52 inches.