In the Ica department, south of the city of the same name, near the modern city of Nazca, in the valleys of the Grande, Ingenio and Nazca rivers, from the 2nd century BC to the 6th century AD, the Nazca tribes, the most important civilization of pre-Inca times, lived.
This culture gained fame after the discovery of the lines and geoglyphs of the Nazca desert, but it is also interesting because it produced perhaps the highest quality ceramics and textiles in all of ancient Peru. Along with this, the Nazca culture became famous for the products of exotic feathers, underground aqueducts to save water, and grim trophy human heads.
The Nazca people erected a number of buildings and pyramids (more than 30 in the vicinity of Coahuachi), using rather complex structural solutions. They invented conical clay bricks that protected from destruction by earthquakes. It was a theocratic society influenced by nearby civilizations such as Paracas. Ultimately, they were subordinated to the Vari culture of the southern Andes, which modified the patterns adopted from Nazca on ceramics and textiles.
The decline of the Nazca culture and the subsequent extinction is probably caused by constant droughts due to the phenomenon of the El Niño current, which affects the coast of Peru, even more so, invasions and conflicts with neighboring ethnic groups.
Trophy heads
The Nazca people had a tradition of decapitating their enemies and mummifying their heads. They fastened the lips of their heads with a thorn, and hung them on their belts, believing that in this way they would take away the strength and valor of dead enemies. The Nazca craftsmen possessed a special technology: with the help of sand and warm stones, they knew how to reduce the size of their heads so that it was more convenient to carry them with them.
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Nazca textiles
The textiles of the Nazca culture were the most sophisticated in ancient Peru. It has been crafted using several techniques and has evolved continuously in styles. Scientists count at least 5 different styles of performance. It originally resembled the textiles of the Paracas necropolises, before the introduction of three-dimensional sewing techniques.
Then Nazca introduced embroidery in the style of "protruding" drawings. Subsequently, their patterns became more stylized, depicting mystical creatures and geometric patterns. This technique was fascinating: it distinguished different groups of figures depending on which side the observer was looking at the fabric from. Further, the design became more and more abstract and geometric, until the conquest of the Nazca people by the Vari people in the 700s AD, after which new techniques such as batik and patchwork emerged.
The art of pen making
The woven, colored feathers featured an abstract design and depicted mythological figures. Such items were considered sacred. Birds were associated with gods, and clothing made from feathers could only belong to high-ranking political and religious leaders.
Feathers are very beautiful and sophisticated, and were made in the final phase of the Nazca civilization, when the influence of the Vari culture was already noticeable.