The sounds and colors of power : the sacred metallurgical technology of ancient West Mexico

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The sounds and colors of power : the sacred metallurgical technology of ancient West Mexico

Dorothy Hosler

MIT Press, c1994

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-300) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This text is an analysis of the relationship between culture and technology. The author - an archaeologist, metallurgist, and anthropologist - shows how the methods of materials science, augmented by archaeological and other sources of data, can be used to illuminate historical puzzles such as the origins of the unique metallurgy developed in West Mexico between the seventh and 16th centuries. This book traces the roots of this technology to Central and South America and establishes that it was introduced to West Mexico in two separate waves, both travelling along a maritime trade route originating in Ecuador and extending as far south as central and southern Peru. She then shows how West Mexican smiths transformed the elements of the technology (including alloy systems, fabrication methods, and artifact designs) to reflect their own perceptions of what were for them late-appearing materials, in that they were introduced some time after the foundations of civilization had appeared in their land. The central question Hosler addresses is why West Mexicans chose not to exploit the utilitarian properties of metals but focused instead on what seem to us to be incidental properties of sound and colour. Drawing on historical, ethnographic, and linguistic data, she argues that metallic sounding instruments, especially bells, were used in rituals that offered protection in war, that celebrated creation, fertility, and regeneration, and that figured in concepts of the sacred - rituals, in short, that created a universe through song, through the sound of bells, and through reflective golden and silvery colours. The focus on sound and colour thus constituted an expression of divine power. Hosler argues further that the elites and rulers who wore and used these metal objects themselves embodied these supernatural qualities. An array of technical date, maps, and photomicrographs support Hosler's analysis.

Table of Contents

  • Part 1 The perspective and the region: an overview of Mesoamerican prehistory
  • the West Mexican metalworking zone
  • South American contacts in West Mexico
  • the research agenda. Part 2 Resources, metals and alloys: distribution of native metals and ore minerals in the metalworking zone
  • ore types used in West Mexican metallurgy
  • documentary evidence for ancient mining. Part 3 Period 1 of West Mexican metalworking - AD 600 to AD 1200/1300: the technological chronology
  • archaeological evidence of period 1 metallurgy
  • the metallurgical technology of period 1
  • lost-wax casting - bells
  • cold working - sumptuary and ritual objects
  • cold working - utilitarian objects
  • summary and observations. Part 4 Origins of period 1 West Mexican metallurgy: Ecuador and West Mexico
  • Colombia and Lower Central America
  • the introduction of the technology to West Mexico
  • the evidence from Ecuador
  • the reinterpretation. Part 5 The florescence of West Mexico metallurgy - AD 1200/1300 to the Spanish invasion: archaeological evidence for period 2 metallurgy
  • the metallurgical technology of period 2 - new materials and new designs
  • lost-wax casting - bells
  • cold and hot work - sumptuary items
  • cold work - tools and axe-monies
  • the focus of period 2 metallurgy. Part 6 Period 2 - origins and transformations: alloying
  • alloys and artifacts
  • mechanisms of introduction
  • the new technology - West Mexican alloys and smelting regimes
  • the West Mexican interpretation. Part 7 The dissemination of West Mexican metllurgy: Western Morelos - Cuexcomate and Capilco
  • Lamanai, Belize
  • the Huastec region - Vista Hermosa and Platanito
  • other sites and regions
  • discussion. Part 8 The sounds and colours of power: colour
  • sound
  • sound, metal and creation
  • the social context. Appendices: technical studies - data and methods
  • quantitative chemical analyses of artifacts in the RMG collection.

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