---
title: "Dressed for the Empire: What an Inka Tunic Said"
description: "Inka tunics were state-issued cloth: checkerboard and diamond-band designs marked loyalty and rank, while tocapu, the tiny woven squares, remain unread."
type: Story
url: https://teazle.art/stories/inka-tunic-meaning-dressed-for-the-empire
published: 2026-10-14
updated: 2026-10-14
author: "The Teazle editors"
image: https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/595308521162197cb7a177cf1cca775bfa5b3b6a-3527x4000.jpg?w=1600&fit=max&q=78&auto=format
image_license: CC0
---

# Dressed for the Empire: What an Inka Tunic Said

*What did Inca tunics mean? A close look at tunics in the Met and Cleveland collections: who wove them, who was allowed to wear them, why a checkerboard meant soldiers, and what nobody has yet managed to read in the tocapu.*

![An Inka tunic woven as a checkerboard of near-black and cream squares, with a red V-shaped yoke at the neck and a zigzag embroidered edge, shown flat.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/595308521162197cb7a177cf1cca775bfa5b3b6a-3527x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Tunic, Inca, 1400–1535. Camelid fiber, 87 x 76.5 cm. 2017.674. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

An Inka (also spelled Inca) tunic, or *unku*, was a state-regulated garment: fine cloth made under imperial control, handed out as a reward, and woven in a small repertoire of designs that told other people who the wearer answered to. What the designs meant is only partly known. The checkerboard has a documented military link; the tiny colored squares called tocapu are still argued over, and nobody has read them.

## What was an Inka tunic?

An [unku](https://teazle.art/glossary/unku.md) was a man's tunic, woven as a single panel with a slit for the head and no sleeves, worn over a loincloth. The finest were tapestry-woven from camelid fiber, with seams and edges covered in embroidery. The full-size Met tunics in the table below are about 75 centimeters wide and 90 tall.

That is a body-sized rectangle of cloth, and the Inka used all of it to carry a message.

The Metropolitan Museum describes [its checkerboard tunic](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/751901) as a garment of a type that was one of the primary markers of identity in the Inka Empire, and its entry for [the diamond-band tunic](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1982.365) records the same construction: one panel, joined with single-interlocking weaves, the seams afterwards covered with fine double-faced embroidery. The form has a long ancestry. The Cleveland Museum of Art notes that [Wari tunics](https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.12) of roughly 700 to 1100 were already built from woven panels with openings left for head and arms, and that this construction "seems to have influenced the construction of later Inca tunics."

Inka itself is the spelling used by the Textile Museum in Washington, whose exhibition [Weaving an Empire: Textiles of the Inka World](https://museum.gwu.edu/weaving-empire-textiles-inka-world) is open until 19 December 2026. Museums such as the Met and Cleveland still write Inca; they mean the same people and the same empire, which sources date from about 1438 until the capture of Atahualpa at Cajamarca in 1532 and his execution in 1533.

![An Inka tunic woven as a checkerboard of near-black and cream squares, with a red V-shaped yoke at the neck and a zigzag embroidered edge, shown flat.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/595308521162197cb7a177cf1cca775bfa5b3b6a-3527x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Tunic, Inca, 1400–1535. Camelid fiber, 87 x 76.5 cm. 2017.674. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

| Object | Date | Fiber | Size (cm) | Accession |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Checkerboard tunic | 1400–1535 | camelid fiber | 87 × 76.5 | 2017.674 |
| Tunic, Chuquibamba | 1460–1540 | camelid hair, cotton | 94 × 75.6 | 33.149.100 |
| Tunic with Diamond Band | 1460–1540 | camelid hair, cotton | 88.9 × 73.7 | 1982.365 |
| Votive checkerboard tunic | 1460–1626 | camelid fiber | 52.4 × 41.9 | 2018.5 |
| Miniature tabard (Inka and Spanish) | 1600–1700 | cotton, camelid hair, silk, metal | 36.8 × 27.9 | 2007.470 |

## Who made the cloth, and who was allowed to wear it?

The finest Inka cloth, called [cumbi](https://teazle.art/glossary/cumbi.md), was made by specialist weavers working for the state, and wearing it was a privilege granted from above. The Met's [essay on Andean textiles](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/andean-textiles) says officials closely controlled its production, use and design, and that a select group of women and men wove it in residential centers and outposts.

Sources disagree about the weavers. The Cleveland Museum says [fine tapestry garments](https://clevelandart.org/art/1957.136) were made across the empire by women of noble families, by professional weavers and by the [aclla](https://teazle.art/glossary/aclla.md), the "Chosen Women" who lived in cloistered communities and also brewed beer for the state. The National Gallery of Australia's exhibition notes, citing the scholar Rebecca Stone-Miller, instead attribute checkerboard tunics to male [cumbicamayos](https://digital.nga.gov.au/archive/exhibition/incas/default.cfm%3firn=236005&bioartistirn=91406&mnuid=3&galid=10&viewid=2.html). Both can be true: the sources describe different workshops and, perhaps, different cloth.

Who wore the result is clearer. Fine tapestry tunics came through the state. The Met's guide to its checkerboard tunic says that only those who received such garments, among them warriors and diplomats, could wear them. Cleveland says the products of the aclla and the weavers were redistributed by the state "as prized gifts to loyal vassals and allies." John Murra's 1962 paper on [cloth and its functions in the Inka state](https://zenon.dainst.org/Record/000030331) (*American Anthropologist* 64, pp. 710–728) is the classic starting point on this question; we have not been able to read it and cite it here only as a reading-list item. What the museum records support is simpler: a tunic accepted was a loyalty acknowledged.

A third source adds a grading of the cloth itself. The World History Encyclopedia, a secondary summary, lists three grades: coarse *chusi*, everyday and military *awasqa*, and the finest *qompi* (cumbi), itself divided into tribute-grade cloth and cloth for royal and religious use. Treat the exact scheme as a reference point rather than a rule; it needs checking against Murra and Rowe before it is repeated as fact.

## What did a checkerboard tunic signal?

A black-and-white checkerboard with a red V-shaped yoke is the Inka tunic most often connected with soldiers. The Met says Francisco de Jerez, Pizarro's secretary, first mentioned the type in 1532, describing the first regiment of the Inka army in checkerboard dress. Whether every wearer was a soldier is unknown.

What the Met's wording supports is narrower: such garments were gifts, and warriors and diplomats were among those who received them.

The tunic in the Met's collection shows the logic. Its [checkerboard design](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/751901) is the same on front and back and inside and out, and the museum notes the embroidered edges. Look at the picture above: the red yoke is not a patch but part of the weave, a stepped wedge cut into the grid. The Met's guide gives Jerez's phrase as "livery in the form of a chessboard," which is the right word. Livery is dress that identifies whom you serve.

Two cautions. The date: the Met gives 1400–1535, while the Getty's cataloging example for the same object, 2017.674, gives the 16th century (1501–1600), so a pre-conquest origin is likely but not certain. The year of Jerez's account is also given differently: the Met says 1532, the National Gallery of Australia says 1534, probably the difference between the event and its publication, though we did not confirm that. And the red yoke may carry its own meaning. The NGA notes Stone-Miller's suggestion that it could mark higher status; that is an interpretation, not a record.

### Why did the Inka make a tunic for a statue?

A [checkerboard tunic only 52 centimeters tall](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/751900) in the Met's collection was made for a votive figure, not a person. Its design follows full-size garments associated with the Inka military, and its scale points to an offering. The Met links it to *capac hucha* rituals and to Juan de Betanzos's account of sacred images dressed in woven clothing.

The Met adds that small checkerboard tunics have turned up with small figurines in capac hucha offerings. The inference, ours and not the museum's, is that the pattern was recognizable enough to be shrunk and still read. It also complicates any simple reading of checkerboard as a uniform: it was a garment type with a look that could be miniaturized, offered and recognized again.

Betanzos wrote around 1551, drawing on oral accounts of Inka relatives and on the memories of khipu specialists, so he is a primary witness and an interested one. The passage the Met cites should be read in a modern translation: Roland Hamilton and Dana Buchanan's 1996 University of Texas Press edition of the *Suma y narración de los Incas* is an English translation.

![A miniature checkerboard tunic in cream and brown squares with a red V-shaped yoke, shown flat.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/03b788154caa56916ea94fd1dc130c798bf5ff20-3361x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Votive checkerboard tunic, Inca, 1460–1626. Camelid fiber, 52.4 x 41.9 cm. 2018.5. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

## Were there fixed designs, and what did the diamond band mean?

Yes, there was a small repertoire of fixed designs; the exact number depends on who is counting. The Met says the diamond-waist tunic is one of about half a dozen standardized designs of the empire, while John Howland Rowe's 1979 study of standardization is described in a catalog record as finding four patterns documented by several surviving examples.

The Met's [Tunic with Diamond Band](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1982.365) is white with a red band at the waist holding eight stepped diamonds on a side. White cloth was highly prized, the Met says, because white camelids were comparatively rare in the Andes. The Met's essay adds that a man would likely have worn it, and that women, central to state textile production, may have woven it.

Cleveland owns another of the standard schemes, [the "Inca Key"](https://clevelandart.org/art/1957.136), which its museum text calls one of the most common Inka tunic patterns. Standardization is the point. A garment that anyone from Quito to Santiago could identify at a glance does the work of a flag.

![A cream tunic with a single red band across the waist holding eight stepped diamonds, shown flat.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/7f01d20d67d83c1565fe6e30dff39907db97d000-3427x3823.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Tunic with Diamond Band, Inca, 1460–1540. Camelid hair, cotton, 88.9 x 73.7 cm. 1982.365. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

## What is tocapu, and can anyone read it?

[Tocapu](https://teazle.art/glossary/tocapu.md) (also spelled t'oqapu or toqapu) is the name for small geometric designs woven into squares or bands, as on the waistband of a standard tunic and on rulers' garments in colonial pictures. Scholars have debated whether they were writing, heraldry or decoration. No reading is accepted, and anyone offering a "translation" is ahead of the evidence.

What is not in dispute is the placement. Cleveland, in its note on a [post-conquest half tunic](https://clevelandart.org/art/1951.393), calls the t'oqapu waistband and deep V-yoke standard decorations of Inka tunics. The most extreme case is the [all-tocapu tunic at Dumbarton Oaks](https://smarthistory.org/?p=1633), which reportedly carries 312 tocapu. Andrew James Hamilton, who studied it for his book *The Royal Inca Tunic*, argues in his [ACLS abstract](https://www.acls.org/?p=12121) that the garment is unfinished and was probably being woven on the eve of the Spanish conquest for the last emperor, Atahualpa; the [Harvard Magazine account](https://www.harvardmagazine.com/index%2ephp/2024/07/woven-tunic-inca-textile) says it reached Dumbarton Oaks in 1963 after Robert Bliss bought it for his personal collection, which is why its early history is poorly documented. Hamilton also reads the tunic as a statement of control: designs drawn from subject peoples, woven only by state weavers, worn by the emperor.

| Reading | Who argues it | Basis | Status |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Writing or glyphs | Debated since the 1970s | Pattern repetition and variety | Unproven; Harvard Magazine notes the Inka are not known to have had writing |
| Heraldry tied to rulers | Eeckhout and Danis, 2004 | Tocapu on Sapa Inca portraits in Guaman Poma's *Nueva corónica* | Authors call it preliminary |
| Statement of imperial control | Hamilton | Dumbarton Oaks tunic; colonial accounts | Argued in a book; not a decipherment |
| Rank and place markers | General scholarly view | Designs appear tied to peoples, places and social roles | Broad consensus, little specifics |

The colonial evidence is thin and slanted. Felipe [Guaman Poma de Ayala](https://poma.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/396/en/text), writing around 1615, drew the Sapa Incas in tocapu bands. A [Harvard DRCLAS essay](https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/?p=83003) observes that he redrew scenes from an earlier manuscript while upgrading the rulers' plainer garments to all-tocapu tunics. He was drawing a king as he thought a king should look, not photographing one.

## Did every region dress the same?

No. The empire standardized cloth, but it did not erase local dress, and the Spanish chroniclers who saw it say the difference was intended. Pedro Cieza de León wrote in 1553 that each nation had its own headdress, and Bernabé Cobo in 1653 that each province had emblems by which its people were known.

Both statements come to us through a [compilation of chronicler quotations](https://precolombino.cl/wp/en/?p=32110) by the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, and the compilation gives the same idea from Juan de Santacruz Pachacuti (1613), who credits the first Inka, Manco Capac, with ordering that each people's dress be different so their origin could be recognized. Treat the order itself as legend. Treat the observation as what it is: Spaniards, a generation after the conquest, found regional dress remarkable enough to record.

The textiles agree. The Met's [Chuquibamba tunic](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/308120) was once attributed to Inka weavers, but scholars now regard Chuquibamba as a distinct culture older than the empire. Its weavers, the Met says, kept their own traditions after their region came under Inka rule: checkerboard-style grids, with eight-pointed stars alternating with stylized fish or birds. The museum contrasts it with typical Inka tunics, where an eight-pointed star is a solid color rather than set on a square of a different color. This is the same exhibition thesis from the other direction: the Textile Museum describes garments from communities under Inka rule that reflect both [loyalty to the empire and local styles](https://hali.com/editorial/rare-inka-era-garments-go-on-display-at-gwu-museum).

![A tunic woven as a grid of red, yellow, green and cream squares, each holding a small star or bird-like motif, shown flat.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/c2829788ef0d4af7f4fa448642a7da8e51143b69-3452x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Tunic, Chuquibamba, Peru, 1460–1540. Camelid hair, cotton, 94 x 75.6 cm. 33.149.100. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

## How did cloth relate to the khipu?

A [khipu](https://teazle.art/glossary/khipu.md) was a knotted-cord record, and like cloth it was made by spinning and plying fiber. The documented state use of khipu is accounting. The Met's [essay on Andean textiles](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/andean-textiles) mentions knotted cords alongside textiles as Inka record-keeping, but no source we found shows that a specific khipu counted specific tunics.

The best documented state use is food and goods. In a 2005 study of Inkawasi, a storage site on Peru's south coast, Gary Urton and Alejandro Chu described [34 khipu from the storehouse](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/latin-american-antiquity/article/accounting-in-the-kings-storehouse-the-inkawasi-khipu-archive/417CED6AB7ED0F6D37DC7A3E84F698D5), some found with traces of peppers, peanuts and beans, and some paired in a way that suggests checks-and-balances accounting. Betanzos, in a [modern translation](https://worldhistorycommons.org/juan-de-betanzos-narrative-incas), has provinces sending clothing, among other goods, to refill storehouses emptied by sacrifices after a ruler died. Put the two together and you get a plausible system, not a proven ledger of tunics.

Surviving khipu are few: counts range from roughly 600 to about 870 depending on the year and the source, from a [2005 newspaper report](https://www.browndailyherald.com/2005/09/30/strings-knots-may-tell-story-of-an-empire-prof-says) to a [History.com article on Urton's database](https://www.history.com/articles/researchers-may-be-closer-to-solving-ancient-inca-mystery). The point stands either way. The Inka kept the empire's books in thread, and much of its most visible output was thread too.

The loose parallel with Europe is the grid. Lace makers sat down to count squares on a pattern chart (see Lace by the Square), and a court dress turned its skirt into a billboard for the cloth (see The Width of a Room). The Inka put the counting and the display in one garment.

## What happened to the Inka tunic after the Spanish conquest?

The tunic outlived the empire, but its meaning shifted. Sixteenth-century weavers kept the form, the waistband and the V-yoke, yet added new motifs. Cleveland's [half tunic](https://clevelandart.org/art/1951.393) has the standard t'oqapu waistband and V-yoke, but animals in the yoke and flowers in the field date it, the museum says, after the 1532 conquest.

The Met's [miniature tabard](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/320054) of 1600–1700, made of cotton, camelid hair, silk and metal, mixes the languages further: a tocapu-style band borrowed, the Met says, from a different type of Inka tunic, set among rows of flowers. [Smarthistory](https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Art/SmartHistory_of_Art_2e/SmartHistory_of_Art_XIc_-_Latin_America_1500_to_1900/03%3A_South_America_c._1500_-_1900/3.01%3A_Viceroyalty_of_Peru/3.1.02%3A_16th_century/3.1.2.03%3A_Textiles_in_the_Colonial_Andes) notes that Inka-style tunics allowed native Andean elites to reenact and reinvent Inka power in the colonial setting, and Joanne Pillsbury's 2002 article on the colonial *unku* in *Cleveland Studies in the History of Art* is cited in Cleveland's records for its Inka tunics.

Power noticed. After the rebellion of Túpac Amaru II in 1780–1783, the Spanish authorities moved against Inka symbols. The John Carter Brown Library's exhibition says the defeat led to the [banning of Inca costume](https://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/peru/peru/ind_diario.php) and other expressions of Indian pride. Lucila Iglesias's [article in *Temas Americanistas*](https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/Temas_Americanistas/article/download/14494/12555/51811) quotes the sentence of José Antonio de Areche against Túpac Amaru, which asked that no trace of Inka portraits remain. The portrait order is documented; the exact wording of the clothing ban we were not able to read.

![A small purple garment with a red yoke of stepped yellow and blue checks, a central band of boxed geometric motifs and rows of small flowers, shown flat.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/jvxyxtrt/production/53727547be3c6669537216c3007b70d78277d7e2-3165x4000.jpg?w=1280&fit=max&q=78&auto=format)
*Miniature tabard, Inca and Spanish, 1600–1700. Cotton, camelid hair, silk, metal, 36.8 x 27.9 cm. 2007.470. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. CC0*

## Where can you see an Inka tunic?

In Washington, until 19 December 2026. Weaving an Empire at the Textile Museum, 701 21st Street NW, shows nearly 50 Inka-era textiles, including tunics, a woman's mantle, a khipu and a coca bag, according to [the museum's listing](https://museum.gwu.edu/node/8401) and [coverage in HALI](https://hali.com/editorial/rare-inka-era-garments-go-on-display-at-gwu-museum). It is the museum's first major show of pre-Hispanic South American art since 2005.

The tunics in this story are at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing; the Met's page for the diamond-band tunic lists it as not on view, so check before you travel) and the Cleveland Museum of Art, whose open-access records are linked above. The all-tocapu tunic belongs to Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. Open-access images from the Met and Cleveland can be reused without permission under CC0.

For further reading, start with the museum records linked above, then:

- Rowe, J. H., "Standardization in Inca Tapestry Tunics," in *The Junius B. Bird Pre-Columbian Textile Conference* (The Textile Museum, 1979), pp. 239–264.
- Rowe, A. P., "Technical Features of Inca Tapestry Tunics," [*Textile Museum Journal* 17 (1978)](https://museum.gwu.edu/node/3841), pp. 5–28.
- Murra, J. V., "Cloth and Its Functions in the Inka State," *American Anthropologist* 64 (1962), pp. 710–728.
- Hamilton, A. J., *The Royal Inca Tunic* (Princeton University Press), on the Dumbarton Oaks tunic.
- Pillsbury, J., "Inka Unku: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru," *Cleveland Studies in the History of Art* 7 (2002), pp. 68–103.


## Sources

1. [Tunic, 1400–1535 (2017.674)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/751901). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2. [Votive checkerboard tunic, 1460–1626 (2018.5)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/751900). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
3. [Tunic, Chuquibamba, 1460–1540 (33.149.100)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/308120). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
4. [Tunic with Diamond Band, 1460–1540 (1982.365)](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1982.365). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
5. [Miniature tabard, 1600–1700 (2007.470)](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/320054). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
6. [Andean Textiles (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History), Julia McHugh](https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/andean-textiles). The Metropolitan Museum of Art
7. [Tunic, c. 1400–1540 (1957.136)](https://clevelandart.org/art/1957.136). The Cleveland Museum of Art
8. [Half Tunic, 16th century (1951.393)](https://clevelandart.org/art/1951.393). The Cleveland Museum of Art
9. [Tunic with Profile Animal and Human Heads, c. 700–1100 (1949.12)](https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.12). The Cleveland Museum of Art
10. [Weaving an Empire: Textiles of the Inka World](https://museum.gwu.edu/weaving-empire-textiles-inka-world). The Textile Museum, George Washington University
11. [Rare Inka-era garments go on display at GWU museum](https://hali.com/editorial/rare-inka-era-garments-go-on-display-at-gwu-museum). HALI
12. [Inca Tunic (cataloging example)](https://www.getty.edu/publications/categories-description-works-art/cataloging-examples/inca-tunic/). Getty Research Institute
13. [Inca exhibition notes (checkerboard tunic, cumbicamayos, red yoke)](https://digital.nga.gov.au/archive/exhibition/incas/default.cfm%3firn=236005&bioartistirn=91406&mnuid=3&galid=10&viewid=2.html). National Gallery of Australia
14. [The Mystery Behind an Incan Tunic](https://www.harvardmagazine.com/index%2ephp/2024/07/woven-tunic-inca-textile). Harvard Magazine
15. [The Royal Inca Tunic (project abstract), Andrew James Hamilton](https://www.acls.org/?p=12121). American Council of Learned Societies
16. [The Inca Emperor's New Clothes](https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/?p=83003). ReVista, Harvard DRCLAS
17. [All-T'oqapu Tunic](https://smarthistory.org/?p=1633). Smarthistory
18. [Eeckhout, P. and Danis, N., on tocapu in Guaman Poma's Nueva corónica (2004)](https://revistas.pucp.edu.pe/index.php/boletindearqueologia/article/download/2020/1953). Boletín de Arqueología PUCP
19. [Guaman Poma, Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (GKS 2232 4º, 1615)](https://poma.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/396/en/text). Royal Library, Copenhagen
20. [Selected Quotations from the Spanish Chroniclers](https://precolombino.cl/wp/en/?p=32110). Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino
21. [Juan de Betanzos, Narrative of the Incas (excerpt)](https://worldhistorycommons.org/juan-de-betanzos-narrative-incas). World History Commons
22. [Accounting in the King's Storehouse: The Inkawasi Khipu Archive (Urton and Chu)](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/latin-american-antiquity/article/accounting-in-the-kings-storehouse-the-inkawasi-khipu-archive/417CED6AB7ED0F6D37DC7A3E84F698D5). Latin American Antiquity
23. [Researchers may be closer to solving ancient Inca mystery](https://www.history.com/articles/researchers-may-be-closer-to-solving-ancient-inca-mystery). History.com
24. [Strings, knots may tell story of an empire, prof says](https://www.browndailyherald.com/2005/09/30/strings-knots-may-tell-story-of-an-empire-prof-says). Brown Daily Herald
25. [Cloth and Its Functions in the Inka State (Murra, 1962), bibliographic record](https://zenon.dainst.org/Record/000030331). DAI Zenon catalog
26. [Textile Museum Journal, vol. 17 (1978)](https://museum.gwu.edu/node/3841). The Textile Museum, George Washington University
27. Inka Unku: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru (Pillsbury, 2002). Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 7
28. [Textiles in the Colonial Andes](https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Art/SmartHistory_of_Art_2e/SmartHistory_of_Art_XIc_-_Latin_America_1500_to_1900/03%3A_South_America_c._1500_-_1900/3.01%3A_Viceroyalty_of_Peru/3.1.02%3A_16th_century/3.1.2.03%3A_Textiles_in_the_Colonial_Andes). Smarthistory
29. [Rebels, Inca portraits and the Areche sentence (Iglesias, Temas Americanistas, 2016)](https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/Temas_Americanistas/article/download/14494/12555/51811). Temas Americanistas
30. [Diario of the Túpac Amaru rebellion (exhibition page)](https://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/exhibitions/peru/peru/ind_diario.php). John Carter Brown Library
31. [Inca Textiles (World History Encyclopedia)](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/791/inca-textiles/). World History Encyclopedia

## Glossary

- [Unku](https://teazle.art/glossary/unku.md): An unku is the Inka man's tunic: a sleeveless rectangle of cloth woven as one panel with a slit for the head, worn over a loincloth.
- [Tocapu](https://teazle.art/glossary/tocapu.md): Tocapu are small geometric designs woven into squares or bands on Inka textiles, especially tunics; their meaning has not been deciphered.
- [Cumbi](https://teazle.art/glossary/cumbi.md): Cumbi is the finest cloth of the Inka Empire, tapestry-woven from high-grade camelid fiber under state control and worn by those the state favored.
- [Khipu](https://teazle.art/glossary/khipu.md): A khipu is an Andean record made of knotted cords; under the Inka it served the state as an accounting tool.
- [Aclla](https://teazle.art/glossary/aclla.md): The aclla were the Inka state's Chosen Women, who lived in cloistered communities and wove fine cloth and brewed beer for the empire.

Canonical: https://teazle.art/stories/inka-tunic-meaning-dressed-for-the-empire