Threads of time.

• Author: Conaway, Janelle
• Position: !Ojo! - Museo Amano in Lima, Peru

TUCKED AWAY ON a quiet street in the upscale Miraflores neighborhood of Lima. Peru. the Museo Amano houses an extensive collection of pre-Inca textiles, amassed by a Japanese entrepreneur and amateur archaeologist who immigrated to Peru in the 1950s.

Although the museum has thousands of pre-Columbian pottery pieces, it is the textiles-richly dyed tapestries, whimsical embroideries, delicate lace fragments--that form the heart of the collection. Most come from Peru's Chancay culture. which flourished along the Pacific coast north of Lima from around 1200 AD until the mid-1400s.

The Chancay Valley's arid, consistent climate led to better preservation of textiles than in some other parts of Peru, according to the museum's manager. Doris Robles. who guides many of the by-appointment-only tours. The Museo Amano is doing its best to continue preserving its treasures, keeping them in darkened, climate-controlled rooms that are illuminated only for groups of visitors.

Flat metal drawers slide out to reveal a diverse array of techniques and styles: brocades with raised figures of birds; tie-dyes with abstract geometric patterns; fabrics painted freehand with animal and human characters. The threads of a lacy swatch of cotton gauze seem to undulate with alternating fish and wave designs. One Chancay piece containing more than 60 different patterns was probably used as a "catalog" to show clients the styles available.

Not all the pieces are Chancay; for example, a splendid cape of guacamayo feathers comes from the Chimu culture, which thrived at roughly the same time, in northwest Peru. An older Waft plaid is so tightly woven it is water repellent.

The museum is the creation of businessman and engineer Yoshitaro Amano. who first left Japan for Latin America in 1928. Over the years, he established a string of profitable ventures-retail In Panama. tuna fishing in Costa Rica. quinine in Ecuador. to name a few--only to lose his wealth when he was repatriated to Japan during World War II.

In 1951, he returned to South America, this time to Peru. where he went Into the fish flour business. That, too. prospered--but Amano was soon devoting much of his time to his self-taught vocation...