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Inca Gold and Silver Metallurgy and Objects
Inca metallurgy centered on gold, silver, copper, and their alloys, using lost-wax casting, hammering, soldering, and alloy mixing to make ritual ves…
Timeline
- c. 1400–1532Cusco · CuscoThe Inca state controlled highland gold and silver mining, with specialized craftsmen (kamayuq) producing gold-plate sun images, silver vessels, and copper-alloy tools, mostly used in the Temple of the Sun at Cusco and in aristocratic gift-giving ceremonies.
- 1535Viceroyalty of Peru · PeruIn the 1530s the conquerors demanded ransom according to the Requerimiento and melted down the gold and silver decorations of temples such as Coricancha; large numbers of Inca objects were cast into silver bars and shipped to Spain, causing a catastrophic loss of the pre-Columbian metal heritage.
- c. 1545–1572Potosí (Upper Peru) · PotosíColonial silver mines used European techniques such as mercury amalgamation to extract silver on a large scale, replacing Inca ritual metallurgy; Indian labor entered an industrialized mining system under the mita system.
Sources
- The Art and Archaeology of the Moche: An Ancient Andean Society of the Peruvian North Coast — Steve Bourget and Kimberly L. Jones (2008)
- Silver and Entrepreneurship in Seventeenth-Century Potosí — Peter Bakewell (1988)