Early Paracas Embroidered Panel (unfinished). b.c. 200 - a.d. 100. South Coast of Peru. 25 x 5.75 inches. This sizable Paracas textile was never completed. As such, it uniquely illustrates the maker's process of creating this kind of early Paracas embroidery. Red, two and three ply alpaca yarns are worked into the balanced plain weave ground first, before the yellow and blue/green yarns that usually complete the design in such pieces would have been added. Notice how the design is progressively less filled in as the work progresses upward showing the various stages of outlining and infilling. Compare the detail (above right) of another, smaller, Paracas fragment of the same type that was finished. Its ground is completely covered with embroidered yarns as this larger piece would have been had it been finished. This is a very large scale, rare and quite interesting textile from one of the earliest groups of surviving Pre-Columbian textiles from Peru.