Mummified head, mounted on wooden stand, with a large number of grave goods wrapped in fine, net-like tubular fabric including feathers, sling braids, necklace with large seeds and beads, brown and white fur, a gourd vessel and two wrapped spondylus shells with seed chains, Peruvian, 1401-1530
This preserved head of a Peruvian individual was purchased on behalf of Henry Wellcome’s Historical Medical Museum from a London auction house in 1906, along with other ‘Peruvian antiquities’. Described in the auction catalogue as ‘Head of an Inca Mummy’, the head and neck are swathed in a fine, net-like fabric richly furnished with gifts to accompany them into the afterlife.
Further research is needed to confirm this person’s cultural and geographical origins.
Details
- Category:
- Ethnography and Folk Medicine
- Collection:
- Sir Henry Wellcome's Museum Collection
- Object Number:
- A10690
- Materials:
- stand, wood and binding, cloth
- Measurements:
-
overall: 310 mm x 240 mm x 190 mm,
- type:
- human remains and mummies
- credit:
- Wellcome Trust
