Weaving in Ancient Mexico
Alba Guadalupe Mastache

Weaving is one of the few ancient skills that have survived essentially intact among some of today’s indigenous groups. Direct study of the small corpus of archaeological textiles that have been preserved can provide fundamental insight enabling us to reconstruct the complex, pre-Hispanic technique of weaving.
The art of weaving in pre-Hispanic Mexico reached a high level of development and its origins date back several millennia before Christ. In dry caves in the modern-day states of Puebla and Tamaulipas, fragments of cords, nets, baskets, and mats of different materials have been found to date back to between 5000 and 2500 B.C. However, the production of textiles, or weavings to be more precise, is more recent, and although their bases may be found in techniques employed to make mats and baskets, its manufacture is more complex from the technological perspective. The oldest specimens of weaving known to date come from the first millennium before Christ and from different points in the country.
Due to their organic origins, textiles are fragile, easily destroyed materials and only on rare occasions have they been preserved. In Mesoamerica, unlike zones such as the Andean region or Egypt, very rarely do appropriate climatic conditions exist that allow for the preservation of this type of material, due to the fact that the sample of archaeological textiles that have come down to us is minimal and only in exceptional cases do pieces still retain their original shape and dimensions. Thus, each new discovery, as small as it might be, is of great importance for our understanding of this field, for although there are other sources, such as accounts of chroniclers, figurines, representations in codices, ceramics, murals, and different elements that survive among modernday indigenous groups, there are important dimensions that can only be known through the direct study of textiles.
The majority of archaeological textiles preserved come from dry caves, above all in Northern Mexico, due to the fact that these sites present excellent conditions for the preservation of organic materials. Unfortunately many of these pieces are the product of looting and thus contextual data making it possible to situate them chronologically and culturally are lacking.
It is interesting that numerous textile fragments have reached us thanks to a special circumstance: their association with copper objects, since the products from the corrosion of this material act as sterilizing agents due to their fungicidal and bactericidal action, so they prevent the destruction of organic material found in contact with it.
There are also cases, such as that of the sacred cenote of Chichén Itzá in Yucatán, where despite conditions that would appear to be completely adverse to the preservation of such fragile materials, it was possible to recover an impressive collection of extremely delicate archaeological weavings. Although these fragments have lost their original coloring and appear to be black due to the fact they were burned, they are fascinating examples showing different techniques from pre-Hispanic textile art, such as gauzes, brocades, and embroideries. In this case, their preservation may be attributed to the stability of the moist environment, for the mud in which they were found kept them isolated from abrupt environmental changes that could have led to their destruction.