Featured Mystery box - old-looking textile under glass set into wood box...?

This came from a Christmas in July exchange on another board years ago. I was digging for something else and found this by mistake. The edging looks like real silver, and what might be some seriously old textile is under a piece of glass. The box looks newer and I don't think the top and base are made from the same wood. The fabric in the top looks hand woven, but how old is it and where is it from? The contents came from all over the place.

 

It looks like a pre-columbian Peruvian textile. Not sure what culture or age, though.

 

The weird part of that is I'd swear the box itself is Indian....

 

Sure looks like it. Thanks.

 

I have a similarly fashioned box with textile under glass and the silver border. Will post a pic momentarily.

 

Here's mine...Never realized it had the little peru 925 mark till I just pulled it out for pics... and the wood is shiny cuz i hit it with some fractionated coconut oil when I first bought it.

 

Interesting that the first one @i need help found on ebay says "The new boxes have copies of textiles". So it must have been a cottage industry for some time, now. Most of the genuine pre-columbian textiles from Peru have come from looted graves, which is a little disturbing.

 

Have no idea... I think that 1st Dibs price is insane...who buys from 1st Dibs anyway?

 

@evelyb30 , the style of yours could be Chimú, a later Moche culture from the north coast of Peru.

A lot of genuine pre-Columbian items from the Americas have come from looted graves.
They used to be dug up by poor people trying to make some money, nowadays there are also criminal gangs.
There is now a ban, and rightly so. But many pre-ban Peruvian artifacts were also sold legally, from legitimate digs through legitimate channels. In those days those items were often considered of no special historic interest, because they had found so much (of better quality) already. The best pieces went to museums, the rest was surplus and extra income.

 

Ick. Once found, there was no really good solution. Once found, looted sooner or later, humans being what humans are. We wouldn't know all that much about these cultures without finding the graves, and better the "stuff" find its way to collectors than get tossed in a museum's back room somewhere, never to see the light of day again. Best to leave it as it was, but human nature makes that unlikely.

 

Archeological objects housed in reputable museums are made available to anyone with genuine research interests. They are also exhibited to the general public as much as is consistent with their long term preservation. This cannot be said for objects in private collections. Museums make an effort to collect and maintain objects with documented provenience, which is what allows us to learn about prehistoric cultures. Objects dug up and sold without recording the full context are of limited use for understanding the original culture. They might be pretty or interesting, but that is about all that can be said.

A collector's market for archeological materials creates an incentive for the destruction of prehistoric sites, much like a market for ivory incentivizes the destruction of elephants.

 

Reading this thread reminds me that I never updated you about the free online course that I took about the theft and destruction of ancient art and artifacts. And I don't remember where the original discussion happened. Unfortunately, I only went through one week of the three-week course. The information was interesting to me but for some reason I was not inspired to continue. Ultimately I wasn't interested enough to go through the large amount of reading on multiple websites that was required. I'm not fond of reading very long things online.

Anyway, that's the (unexciting) update!

 

Thanks for the update anyway.

Same here. Reading in general nowadays. I used to read a lot, but my brain won't cooperate anymore. I am glad I read so much from an early age though, a lot of information is still stored somewhere in my uncooperative brain.