The purpose of this paper has been to reconstruct the artist's role in the creation of one very old Paracas mantle in order to try to make that textile seem something more than a beautiful artifact existing apart from its human dimension. The field of the mantle under study and its two borders were each woven separately. After several embroiderers stitched the outlines of identical anthropomorphic images in neat columns and rows, accomplished artists set to work filling in the constituent parts of the figures, choosing one out of a possible five color configurations as the color scheme for each figure. Two master artists established the color block models on either side of the center of the mantle, and six others joined them along the lengths of the mantle, stitching carefully along the width of the textile. Before these images were finished, the already complete embroidered borders were sewn to the mantle. Shortly after, it appears that the garment was the victim of an ancient Andean who tried to destroy or at least mutilate it. Rescued and partially repaired, the mantle found its way into the funerary wrappings of a dead ruler of Paracas, where it waited 2000 years to share its information about the working methods of the renowned embroiderers of Paracas. -- AATA