Four-cornered hat with birds

Remarkably well preserved, this four-cornered hat would have been worn high on the head of an official of the Wari Empire, which occupied the southern highlands of present-day Peru. The four corner peaks on the hat may have originally represented animal ears. This would have made a human-animal composite of the wearer, a common characteristic in Andean symbolic thought. Birds in profile and dynamic geometric patterns are depicted in alternating squares on the hat, which would have been part of an elaborate ensemble that included colorful face painting-one half a different pattern from the other-and a large, intricately patterned tunic. The wearer was virtually obscured and became a walking design.