The mantle is a polychromatic textile made of cotton and Andean camelid fiber. It was made with a plain-woven technique and embroidered in panels (pads). The central area and border show a geometrical bicephalic serpent design in an alternating arrangement imitating a checkerboard. The borders are fringed.

After having been buried along with the body of a tiny sovereign for more than 2,000 years,  the gorgeous Paracas mantle saw light again in 1929. Around that year, the archeologist Julio C. Tello had discovered the Paracas Necropolis in Wari Kayan.
When speaking of his findings, Tello said “It was my first discovery of a great Necropolis in Peru, one that was filled with exceptional mummies of extraordinary importance.”

The archeologist and his team tirelessly excavated everyday under a burning sun until they found so many funerary bundles spread throughout the sandy territory that they were unable to recover them all. The materials that they were able to retrieve were taken to the Museum of Archeology in the city of Lima. In 1931, Julio C. Tello learned that someone was selling a Paracas mantle. The news created confusion, so he immediately ordered the verification of all of the items that he had excavated earlier. His instincts proved correct;  Mummy N°421 had been unbundled and it lacked its mantle. A police report was filed and the recovery operation started immediately and ended successfully with policemen capturing the robber. The thief had consigned the mantle for 2,200 Peruvian soles at a local store. The piece was recovered and taken back to the Museum of Archeology where it was exhibited until only 1993 as it was stolen again that year.

Fortunately in 2013 the Peruvian Embassy in Washington, D.C. communicated that the twice stolen Paracas piece had likely been found. The State Department, the FBI, and the Houston Police immediately worked on a plan to recover the priceless textile. In 2014 the mantle was finally recovered in Houston, Texas. Funded by National Geographic, the show “Peruvian Gold: Ancient Treasures Unearthed” was presented in Dallas, and the Paracas mantle was a proud piece among the rest of the ancient objects exhibited. In 2015, the piece was handed to the Peruvian Ministry of Culture by the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the present, the Paracas mantle is exhibited in the Peruvian National Museum of Archeology, Anthropology, and History and is being kept under prime conservation conditions.