纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 024帕拉卡斯纺织品(2)

I'm in a study room in the British Museum, and in front of me are pieces of cloth well over two thousand years old. They're usually kept in specially controlled conditions, so I'm not going to leave them all exposed to ordinary light and humidity for long. The first thing that strikes you about them is their extraordinary condition. They're each about three or four inches (100 mm) long, and they're embroidered in stem-stitch using wool, either from llamas or alpacas, we're not sure which - both animals are native to the Andes and were soon domesticated. The figures have been very carefully cut out and they must once have been part of a larger garment, a mantel or a cape, or something like that. They are strange beings - not entirely human in form - because they appear to have talons instead of hands, and claws for feet.

At first glance you might find these figures rather charming, as they appear to be flying through the air with their long pigtails or top knots trailing behind them . . . but when you look more closely, they're disconcerting, because you can see that they're wielding daggers and they're clasping severed heads. Perhaps the most striking thing about them, though, is the intricacy of the sewing and the surviving brilliance of the colours, with their blues and pinks, yellows and greens, all sitting very carefully judged next to one another.

These jewel-like scraps of cloth were found about 150 miles (240 km) south of modern Lima. With the coast in front of them and the Andes mountains behind them, the people of Paracas produced some of the most colourful, complex and distinctive textiles that we know.