Artifact: Fabric - Just Blogging Thoughts

Many artifacts are made from natural materials. The fabric is made of cotton. It was found preserved in a sacrificial well in Chichen Itza. It is woven together. The spaces between the threads are large, due to it being worn and old or maybe it is a very small piece and the camera is zoomed in very close. Edges are frayed in an irregular pattern; however it is less frayed when the darker sections meet the edge. The pattern is just a fragment. You never see a portion of the whole pattern. You can tell from the piece that the pattern is regular and repeating. It reminds me of a tortoise shell. The gaps between the threads are not visible in the darker areas that form the pattern. Did the weaver use more threads in these areas to create the pattern? Is the pattern brocaded on and thus as time progressed it did not deteriorate as much or deterioration is less visible due to the density of threads. The caption from the book I got this artifact from states that the fabric was dyed. Was the pattern dyed? Was the base fabric woven, and then dyed, the pattern sown or woven in? Was the base fabric woven, pattern included, and then was the whole thing dyed? This remnant could be a fragment of a large garment with this pattern totally saturating the entire thing. It could also have been just a small detailed piece of a larger plain garment.