English: Wari Tunic, Peru, 750-950 AD
This spectacular tunic is made of 120 separate small pieces of cloth. The pieces were probably woven in strips over a set of scaffold yarns. Each strip was tie-dyed in one of six different color combinations and two patterns: either three rows of small circles or of two larger circles. The scaffold yarns were then removed to separate the individual pieces of cloth, which were reorganized and reassembled into a tunic by sewing the pieces back together. The patterns on each individual piece form larger diamond patterns in the completed tunic, regularly broken by the red-and-yellow pieces patterned with two larger circles. Such pattern-breaking is a hallmark of Huari textile design.
Tie-dyed, pieced tunics like this have been found along the coast of Peru and into the mountainous highlands in the area conquered by the Huari Empire over 1,000 years ago. Ceramics of the period depict high status men wearing this style of tunic.

• camelid (probably alpaca) hair
• plain weave with discontinuous warp and weft yarns, tied resist-dyeing 86.5 cm x 122 cm
• The Textile Museum 91.341
• Acquired by George Hewitt Myers in 1941