Tumpline
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.People used tumplines to carry loads on their backs. Made of soft native cotton or dogbane, they were positioned on the forehead and stout tie-strings were fastened to the load. Artists often painted the tumplines or wove them of mineral- or plant-dyed fibers to create geometric designs. These examples, which have been carbon dated, were almost perfectly preserved by the Southwest’s arid conditions for seven to twelve hundred years.
Artwork Details
- Title: Tumpline
- Artist: Unrecorded Ancestral Pueblo artist
- Date: ca.1019–1283
- Geography: United States, Northern Arizona or New Mexico
- Culture: Ancestral Pueblo
- Medium: Yucca fiber, native cotton, dogbane, pigments
- Dimensions: H. 18 1/2 × W. 2 1/4 in. (47 × 5.7 cm)
- Classification: Textiles
- Credit Line: Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection, Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY (T0743)
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing