This item is a Pre-Columbian Nazca war sling made out of woven very fine plant and camelid fibres. The entire pouch is split with the braided pouch segments held together with a tight wrap of very fine cordage. The lines are in very good condition with no breaks. One line is half the length of the other line and it has a finger loop knot. The other line has a length of 47 cm and it terminates abruptly at the end. This is a very practical device, not ceremonial and fully functional. It was marked as being a war sling, so it must have been standard gear for a foot soldier. A very rare hybrid sling made out of plant and Camelid fibres and in very nice condition.

This sling was one of about 90 slings and tumps that was purchased by the Foliophiles Collection from the Parke Bernet Auction House (New York City) in 1965. The Parke Bernet Auction House was purchased by Sotheby's Auctions a few years later. The Foliophiles Collection brought the collection to The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. to be authenticated. Two slings were given to the museum. Thirty slings and tumps were sold between 1965 and 2002. I purchased the remainder of the collection when the owner of the Foliophiles Collection retired. I have been slowly selling the remainder of the collection to my customers. This sling can be legally marketed in the USA, but it cannot be exported. A copy of the letter proving that the date of acquisition was before the 1972 import ban will be provided to the purchaser upon receipt of payment. You should retain a copy of the letter as proof that your sling is legal to own in the USA.

The Nazca are most famous for their geoglyphs, line art located in the Nazca Desert, a high and arid plateau that stretches between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the pampa (a large flat area of southern Peru). The Nazca plain is virtually unique for its ability to preserve the markings upon it, due to the combination of the climate (one of the driest on Earth, with only twenty minutes of rainfall per year) and the flat, stony ground which minimizes the effects of the wind at ground level.

The Nazca are well known for their textiles. They began using massive quantities of llama and alpaca wool a thousand years before the north coast cultures began to esteem the camelid wool. The source of the wool is believed to be from the Ayacucho region. The motifs that appeared on the pottery appeared earlier in the textiles. Textiles may have been as important to other cultures in the region as to the Nazca, but the desert has preserved the textiles of both the Nazca and Paracas cultures and comprise most of what is known about early textiles in the region.