From Machu Pichu in Peru this is the pre-Inca god of the portal. Worshiped by the Tiwanaku civilisation from around 200BC until about 600AD, his image was later taken by the head of the Inca pantheon Viracocha, the God of Creation.
The embroidered image is one of a group of storytelling artefacts acquired for the museum by storyteller Helen East on a busy tour of South America in 2006. Since when it kept watch next to the door of Mythstories Museum at the Morgan Library in Wem for many years before guarding the ‘Story Hoard‘ at University Centre Shrewsbury.
It is now part of a constellation of Central and South American exhibits at the Grosvenor Park Academy Mini Storytelling Museum in Chester.
