纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 024帕拉卡斯纺织品(6)

"My first reaction when I see these wonderful ancient textiles is - isn't it fantastic that they've survived, and they've survived with colours, and they're being preserved? And then the magnificence of being able to look at them. And when I get the chance, I would like to do a drawing of them, because it's only when you draw them that you can understand the shapes and how they've achieved it, and see the way the threads go. By being able to study them, you get to feel a closer connection, and even start to think: 'Could I do a whole Peruvian-inspired collection by starting to study the way the patterns go?' "

While the Americas before the Europeans arrived are still in many ways a mystery, continuing archaeology and research on textiles like these ones are helping us to piece together a clearer picture. But it's certain that American societies at this date, even advanced ones like the Paracas, were much smaller in scale than the contemporary states in the Middle East and in China that we've been looking at this week. It was to be many centuries yet before empires like the Incas would emerge.

But these textiles and embroideries of the Paracas, produced over two thousand years ago, remain among the greatest in the world. And it's not just designers who see them as having significant potential today. So do politicians. These textiles are now seen, literally, as part of the fabric of the nation and, in contemporary Peru, there is a determined effort to revitalise these traditional weaving and sewing practices, in order to connect modern Peruvians directly to their ancient, indigenous, and entirely non-European past.