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This is an extract from:

Andean Art at Dumbarton Oaks edited by Elizabeth Hill Boone

published by

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Washington, D.C.

© 1996 Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University Washington, D.C. Printed in the United States of America

www.doaks.org/etexts.html

CHAVIN Richard L. Burger

T

he Chavfn culture developed and flourished in the Mosna drainage in the northern highlands of Peru during the first millennium B.C. Its principal center was established at the crossroads of two trails across the glaciated Cordillera Blanca at a location occupied today by the modern town of Chavfn de Huántar. The founding of Chavfn de Huántar occurred centuries later than most of the major early public complexes on the coast, such as Garagay and Moxeke, and in other intermontane valleys, such as Pacopampa; the sculptors and builders of the Chavin ceremonial complex drew inspiration from older prestigious centers in the production of its temples and public art. The art of the Cupisnique culture was one of several sources that were blended to produce the distinctive Chavin style, a style considered by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber (1947) to have been the most beautiful ever produced in prehistoric South America. While coastal and tropical forest elements abound in Chavin art, the temple and its surrounding settlement at 3,150 m above sea level were the product of a highland society The populace responsible for supporting the Chavin center and its art subsisted on a mixture of high altitude rainfall farming and llama herding; many of the villages directly involved in the support of the Chavin temple were located near the upper limits of agriculture, just below the vast puna pasturelands that begin at 3,800 m. Thus, while the style of Chavin art may suggest a close kinship with the Initial Period cultures of the coast, this stylistic relationship should not be confused with social and cultural similarity. Even the historical ties implied by the shared artistic conventions and themes actually may be more of a conscious strategy to bolster the prestige of the newly founded highland center than the outcome of deep historical links. Chavin was the first civilization in the central Andes, and, despite the continuity that Chavin art presents with its antecedents, the culture that produced it broke new ground in almost every aspect of daily life. Unlike traditional Initial Period public centers, Chavin de Huántar developed a large resident population that was internally differentiated along both status and occupational lines. Society was dominated by an elite group with economic and political power, and groups of specialists devoted at least part of their labor to producing goods for this elite and the religious cult with which they were associated. The social and economic field within which Chavin de Huántar interacted included most of the northern and central Peruvian highlands and coast, and contacts were maintained with lowland groups further east. The cult of the Chavin temple spread to communities over much of this vast area and helped to bind these previously unrelated groups; travel and exchange between different regions sharply increased. It is not surprising that technological breakthroughs were common within this cultural environment, particularly since these new technologies were developed to help symbolize the supernatural character of the cult and the special prestige of the elite associated with it. 45

Chavin

As in pre-Chavin times, many of the greatest and most time-consuming works of Chavin civilization were produced to decorate the public buildings. The stone sculpture of the Chavin heartland is almost unique in its ubiquity and high quality. At the same time, portable religious art was produced and exchanged throughout the Chavin sphere of interaction. Some of these were items of ritual paraphernalia, but much of it was jewelry and clothing worn by and buried with special status individuals. Thus, the great art of Chavfn was created within the context of a hierarchically stratified complex society, a society unlike those of the preceding Initial Period. The two favored mediums of Chavin portable art were precious metals in the northern coast and highlands, and textiles in the central and south coast. The production of gold and silver artifacts was itself a remarkable accomplishment since it required the introduction of a host of technological innovations such as sweat welding, soldering, and champlevé and repoussé decoration. Through the development of these techniques, it was possible to go beyond the tiny gold foil sheets produced more than 500 years before, and finally produce extraordinary objects that could be used in costumes and religious rituals. Textiles, the oldest and most prestigious medium of artistic production in the Andes, were likewise transformed by the introduction of new decorative techniques, including polychrome painting and tie-dye. While woven cloth was a widely appreciated skill among all Andean households, the textiles bearing Chavin motifs went far beyond the technological capacity of the people observing them. The Chavin art style is the best known of the Early Horizon styles; its complex esoteric imagery has been recognized throughout an extensive area. Chavin themes and artistic conventions such as metaphorical substitution, double-profile composition, anatropic design, and rough bilateral symmetry (Burger 1988; Roe 1974; J. Rowe 1962) have been encountered at many sites, although the presence of some of these same features in earlier styles sometimes makes identification of a specimen as “Chavín„ far more problematic than once thought. Moreover, many regional “pre-Chavín” artistic styles, such as Cupisnique, continued to evolve and even spread during the Early Horizon; sites with Chavin influence often yield objects that either combine Chavin and non-Chavin elements (see discussion of B—562, P1. 8) or are primarily derived from non-Chavin regional artistic traditions.

46

PLAQUE Plate 1 Chavin, Chongoyape in the Lambayeque drainage, 400—300 B.C. Gold. H. 21 cm; W. 10.8 cm; Wt. 96 g B—604 History: Purchased from the Textile Museum, 1979 Exhibition: Indian Art of the Americas, Chicago Natural History Museum, 1959; Dumbarton Oaks, 1979— Bibliography: Lothrop 1941; Collier 1959: fig. 65; Anton 1972: p1. 5; Cordy-Collins 1979: 58; Alva 1992: 57, lam. 43

This small, golden sheet-metal plaque is decorated with a representation of the principal deity of Chavin de Huántar. It is one of a pair of matching gold plaques. The other was acquired in 1946 from John Wise by the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA 46.117) (Fig. 12) (Margaret Young-Sanchez, personal communication, 1994). The similarities between the Dumbarton Oaks and Cleveland plaques go beyond questions of theme and style, and include many minor details. This suggests that the same mold may have been used to produce both pieces. Only minor differences in the finishing of some elements—such as a snake emerging from the deity’s proper left ankle, and the placement of a hole at the top of the plaques—allow the pieces to be distinguished from each other. The existence of nearly identical Early Horizon gold plaques has a direct parallel in the pair of matching gold plaques recovered in Tomb 2 at Kuntur Wasi by University of Tokyo excavations (Onuki and Kato 1993: 31—32, fig. 12). The hole punched in the upper section of B—604 perhaps allowed it to be hung as a pendant or an ear ornament. This functional interpretation is plausible because the use of pendants is represented in Chavin art (Cordy-Collins n.d.b: fig. 56). Samuel Lothrop’s (1941: 258) suggestion that the Cleveland plaque originally had been part of a crown is an unlikely alternative; neither the Dumbarton Oaks/Cleveland set of plaques nor the set from Kuntur Wasi shows evidence of ever being parts of crowns or any other object. A carefully crafted raised band frames the image of B—604 and completes the object; there is no technical or artistic evidence that the object has been reworked. Lothrop (1941: 251) published this plaque for the first time along with two lots of gold that had been found near Chongoyape in the Lambayeque drainage, some 450 km to the north of Chavin de

Huántar. He suggested that it “may once have been part of the treasure from the Hacienda Almendral, dispersed by the boys who discovered it” (Lothrop 1941: 258). The Almendral find was one of the first discoveries of Chavin gold reported in the archaeological literature. According to the account published by Julio C. Tello (1929: 155—162), in 1928 or 1929 several young boys found a hoard of gold at the bottom of an irrigation ditch on the Hacienda Almendral. The owners of the estate, the Gayoso brothers, attempted to recover all of the objects, but apparently some of the children fled and gave the gold artifacts to their parents or exchanged them for cookies at local stores. This lot of objects included minimally three gold crowns, a gold headband, two pairs of gold tweezers, seven decorated earspools, and four undecorated earspools (Lothrop 1941: 253) (Fig. 13). Lothrop believed that these pieces came from a single grave, since they all seemed to be made for a single individual. The earspools belonged to six pairs of increasing size, and Lothrop suggested that these sets may have been used by the buried individual at different points in his life, working on the assumption that the size of the earspool cylinders was increased as his ear lobe became increasingly distended with age. The largest earspools were undecorated and may not have been finished at the time of his death. Several years later, another tomb was discovered elsewhere in Chongoyape. The three skeletons in this interment had been buried with a somewhat different lot of items also in Chavin style. Lothrop (1941) concluded that the previously described lot had been associated with the burial of a male, while the grave goods in the second lot had belonged to a female. As noted, Lothrop believed that B—604 probably came from the first tomb at Chongoyape; it is interesting, in this light, that the previously 47

Plate 1 48

Fig. 12 Chavin gold plaque. Cleveland Museum of Art, CMA 46/117, J. H. Wade Fund purchase. Photograph courtesy of the museum.

Fig. 13 Six of the gold Chavin earspools (one of each pair) and gold headband from the Hacienda Almendral lot, as published by Lothrop (1941: p1. 17). 49

Chavin

mentioned plaques from Kuntur Wasi came from the burial of a male. These Chongoyape burials were anomalous for many decades until the 1989 project directed by Yoshio Onuki (1990) unearthed the set of tombs at Kuntur Wasi; the grave goods there included Chavin gold similar to that of Chongoyape. Extensive looting has uncovered still other rich Chavin tombs in Jequetepeque and Zaña (Lavalle and Lang 1981). Although pottery was sometimes found in these burials, gold artifacts decorated with Chavin iconography appear to have been the principal items of wealth of the deceased individuals. The lot from the Hacienda Almendral is of particular interest because of the extraordinary wealth that appears to have been interred in a single tomb, and because of the association of Chavin-style iconography with an individual. Chavin iconography appears on items of personal dress including earspools, nose ornaments, crowns, and other objects. It is significant that the religiously charged materials seem to have been buried with the deceased, rather than returned to the community for use by other individuals with the same status or role. It is also interesting that crowns and other objects replete with sacred symbols were found in association with gold tweezers, an item of personal hygiene used to remove unwanted facial hair. The style, iconography, and manufacture of plaque B—604 are consistent with Lothrop’s interpretation of it as coming from the Hacienda Almendral although these criteria do not rule out other possibilities. No other analogous lots of Chavin gold were known at the time of Lothrop’s first publication of the Chongoyape materials. As stated earlier, the Dumbarton Oaks plaque is decorated with a representation of the main deity of the Chavin cult in classic late Chavin style. At Chavin de Huántar, this deity was only represented on the most sacred of stone sculptures; the best known of these images of the main deity is on the Raimondi Stela (Fig. 14). On this granite sculpture, as on the gold plaque, the deity is shown frontally holding a set of staffs. This characteristic pose, which has led some scholars to refer to the deity as the Staff God (J. Rowe 1962), is known from other sites as well, including Gotush near Chavin de Huántar and Carhua on the Paracas peninsula (see discussion of B—545, P1. 6). Two of the crowns from the Hacienda Almendral lot are also decorated with the image of the principal Chavin deity in the “staff god” stance (Burger 1992: figs. 204, 222). Along with 50

the the the the

plaque, these images constitute evidence that Chavin horizon was the result of the spread of Chavin cult far from Chavin de Huántar during Early Horizon. A more finely grained consideration of B—604 provides some intriguing insights into the variability in Chavin art and the relationship of the branches of the Chavin cult to the center at Chavin de Huántar. As already noted, this plaque and many other portable Chavin objects appear to have been strongly influenced by the representations on the stone sculptures at the cult’s center. This influence was not limited to the iconography. For example, the plain raised band that borders the plaque mimics the framing technique employed on Chavin de Huántar sculpture. As on these sculptures, the complex two-dimensional image is highlighted by surrounding lowered zones. It is worth emphasizing that these framing and intaglio conventions are not common in Andean art. Both are absent in the pre-Chavin sculpture of Cerro Sechin (for example, Fig. 24); even some Early Horizon sculptures from outside the Chavin de Huántar heartland, such as those from Kuntur Wasi, represent Chavin themes but fail to place them within raised frames. The style in which the principal deity is represented on the Dumbarton Oaks plaque conforms to the classic canons of the Chavin style. The image has a rough bilateral symmetry, and its fundamental theme is obscured by the abundant use of metaphorical substitutions—a convention called “kennings” by John Rowe (1962) in his well-known analogy to Nordic sagas. For example, on B—604 the deity’s hair is represented as snakes, as are the ends of his breechcloth. Anatropic design is another of the more distinctive conventions of Chavin art; images are arranged so they can be “read” in an alternative way when they are inverted (Burger 1988: 119; Kubler 1975). On the Dumbarton Oaks plaque, the top of the deity’s head is shown as a mouth with four teeth and a central fang from which four vertical snakes issue; when the object is turned 180 degrees, this mouth becomes part of a new agnathic face incorporating the old figure’s eyes and nose. (This anatropic arrangement is strikingly similar to the one on Callango textile B—545, P1. 6.) A second use of anatropic design occurs on the trunk of the deity’s body A pair of snakes are shown inverted so that they can serve as eyes for a monstrous face when the object is rotated; in this case, the claws of the deity double as the fangs for this visage.

Chavín

Fig. 14 The Raimondi Stela. Drawing by John H. Rowe.

The style of the image on B—604 indicates that it is an example of late Chavin art, perhaps coeval with the end of Phase D in Rowe’s sculptural sequence. The presence of squared eyes and the angular mouth with corner points resemble the features of the Phase D columns of Chavin de Huántar’s New Temple. The simplified snake heads (in which the nose and separate mouth are omitted), the bilobed ears, and the presence of scrolls are features that became popular in the subsequent EF Phase. Thus, the style of the representation, as well as the staff god stance, indicate that the piece was produced during the height of Chavin de Huántar’s New Temple, when the center’s pan-regional influence was greatest. We estimate that the piece was made during the fourth century B.C. While the similarities between the plaque and the sculptures at Chavin de Huántar are striking, there are some interesting differences between this image and the representations of the principal deity at Chavin de Huántar. First of all, a triangular form is shown between the deity’s legs on the plaque; this element has elsewhere been interpreted as corresponding to the form of breechcloths worn by males. Thus, in contrast to Chavín de Huántar, where the principal deity is shown without specifying gender, the deity on the Dumbarton Oaks plaque seems to be shown as male. This variation also occurs on one of the gold crowns from Chongoyape (Lothrop 1941: fig. 26c) and is part of a larger pattern. Outside of Chavín de Huántar, the main deity (or deities) is shown as either male or female on numerous representations. It has been suggested that the female representations may actually represent the sisters, wives, or daughters of the Chavín de Huántar deity, which served as the individualized divine patrons of branch oracles (Burger 1988). If this analogy is extended to later Andean regional cults, the male supernaturals, such as that represented on the Dumbarton Oaks plaque, could represent the brothers or sons of the principal deity (rather than being a representation of the principal deity as usually is assumed). A second interesting variation in the plaque representation is the arrangement of the deity’s clawed hands and staffs. They are held upwards against the chest, as if the deity is holding a single horizontal staff, whose ends are kenned as two jawless fanged faces. The holding of a horizontal staff has parallels in the staffs held by the avian “guardians” on the columns of the New Temple (J. Rowe 1967: figs. 8, 9). However, the deity also appears to 51

Chavín

be holding vertical staffs in the form of the tooth bands that descend along the sides of the plaque, from the two agnathic profiled heads almost to the bottom of the piece. This visual ambiguity, like the confusion introduced by the metaphorical substitutions and the anatropic organization, appears to be intentional. A final noteworthy feature is that the deity represented appears to be standing on a pedestal or stool, decorated with a pair of agnathic faces. Serpents issuing from the main figure’s clawed feet run down the sides of the pedestal or stool. There is no known analogue in Chavín art to this arrangement. However, the craftsman who produced this plaque may have been drawing inspiration for this from the local Cupisnique artistic tradition of the north coast, a tradition which predated the emergence of the Chavín style. For example, adobe sculpture at Huaca de los Reyes, a Cupisnique center in the Moche valley repeatedly depicts an anthropomorphic deity in frontal position standing on a pedestal which, in some instances, is adorned with fanged agnathic faces (T. Pozorski 1981: figs. 10.7, 10.10, 10.11). RLB

Technical Description The metal from which this object is made is a gold-silver-copper ternary alloy Composition (Weight Percent) Au 68.8

Ag 28.8

Cu 2.3

The composition compares closely with that of objects B—440, B—441, and B—605 (Pls. 3, 4, 2). Al-

though the level of silver is substantially higher, it is not uncommon for Andean gold placer deposits. Analysis of the plaque was performed by x-ray fluorescence (at the Freer and Sackler Galleries’ Department of Conservation and Scientific Research). Thickness measurements made along the perimeter of the plaque average 0.043 cm. The motifs, rendered in relief at the front, were accomplished from the back with tracing tools, their ends highly polished and rounded, that pressed the metal into a bed or backing of resilient material. No hammer blow marks remain from manufacture of the sheet itself, nor are such marks evident within any of the raised motifs or along their borders.24 All the relief work appears to have been accomplished by pushing and pressing metal, rather than by hammering it. Occasionally the borders around raised elements were clarified from the front with burnishing tools, whose marks remain as contours at the base of such features. Large flat areas, such as those adjacent to the ears or between torso and staffs, were worked from the front, sunk slightly below the original plane of the sheet. The burnishing in these areas is so expert that no traces of the original tool marks remain. In contrast to the central motif on disc B—441 (P1. 4), the plane changes on this plaque are gradual, the walls of relief elements slope, and the intersections of planes are rounded. Sharp angles and crispness of effect were avoided by using polished, rounded tools and pressing the metal in long strokes along the working surface. A single hole at the center of the top framing border has been punched from front to back; the burr remains around the rim. Slightly oval, the average diameter is 0.37 cm. HL

24Lothrop (1941: 253) makes a similar observation about the kinds of tools used to render the relief decoration on the Chongoyape gold crowns: “The relief was pressed out with tools of various sizes, as may be seen by close inspection of the surface. There are no indications of hammering.”

52

Plate 2

FELINE CUTOUT Plate 2 Chavin, perhaps from the Lambayeque drainage, 400—300 Gold. H. 7.5 cm; W. 10.4 cm; Wt. 17.1g B—605

B.C.

History: Purchased from the Textile Museum, 1979 Exhibition: Dumbarton Oaks, 1979— Bibliography: Emmerich 1965: fig. 1; Easby 1966: 72—81; Kan 1972: 73, fig. 6; Alva 1992: 18, lam. 1; Burger 1992a: 202, fig. 221

The feline, particularly the jaguar, was one of the most common animals represented in the art of Chavín de Huántar and in the early religious art of the Andes in general. As the dominant carnivore in the tropical forests, the jaguar was a potent symbol of power, strength, and danger. As a lone and ferocious hunter with an ability to move from the land to the water or trees, the jaguar was a rich source for metaphor. Andean and Amazonian priests and shamans often described the jaguar as their alter ego and even claimed to transform themselves into jaguars during critical dealings with the supernatu-

ral realm. Julio C. Tello claimed that the jaguar was the basic element of Chavín art, and, while this view may be exaggerated, the jaguar is certainly a prominent theme in the sculpture of Chavín de Huántar and its branch cults. B—605 is a small piece of gold sheet that has been cut in the silhouette of a feline; it was then worked in low relief to show the anatomical features of the animal. It should be noted that the gold feline representation under discussion lacks indication of the pelage markings that distinguish the jaguar from highland Andean felines, such as the 53

Chavín

puma. With its crossed fangs, upright ears, clawed feet, and prominent tail, in most respects this piece is a classic Chavín representation of a feline. Three small holes were punched in the top of the piece, perhaps so that it could be sewn on a textile hanging or piece of clothing. This class of artifact is not unique. Analogous Early Horizon gold cutouts of other figures have been found elsewhere, such as the cutout crab ornament recovered from the tomb at Chongoyape (Lothrop 1941: p1. 20). B—605 may also have been recovered from the Lambayeque drainage (J. Rowe 1962: fig. 26). As was common with Chavín felines, the end of the tail was formed as a snake, or, more accurately a “cat-snake,” since ears were grafted onto the normal snake head. Another Chavín convention, double-profile composition, adorns the back of the feline, where it only partially succeeds. In most instances of double-profile composition, two adjacent profile faces are joined along a shared axis so that they can be read both as two independent silhouettes and as a single frontal face. On the saddle of the feline’s back in B—605, two profile agnathic mouths with nostrils are shown, separated by a third small panel. This separation prevents their being read as a single frontal mouth and even obscures their identification as two profile faces. This may be a situation where the artist tried to represent an alien artistic convention that he or she did not understand. The attempt to employ the doubleprofile convention on the feline’s back is unusual in the corpus of Chavín art; this area was usually decorated with a single-profile agnathic face (from which the tail appears) or with repeating geometric elements representing pelage markings. The gold feline cutout has a different stance from the feline sculptures at Chavín de Huántar. The gold feline has its tail held upright above the body and its legs drawn up as though running. All the stone felines from Chavin, numbering more than two dozen, have their paws planted firmly on the ground with their curled tails hanging at a lower position (cf. Kan 1972, Lumbreras 1977). Although this gold feline’s stance is unorthodox, it is not without parallel. One of the bowls from the Ofrendas Gallery at Chavín de Huántar (Lumbreras 1971: fig. 11) is closer to this position than to those of the stone images, and the Chavin-style felines shown on textiles and gourds (see B—562, P1. 8) are

54

sometimes depicted in silhouette, with the paw and tail positions varied in a similar, though not the same, manner (Cordy-Collins n.d.b: figs. 111, 116). RLB

Technical Description This single sheet of hammered gold was folded at one time and has been opened and probably burnished in some areas to flatten the metal. Four fold axes are visible; they are present either as raised ridges or as alternating ridges and depressions on the front of the object and should not be confused with the relief decoration itself: (1) a horizontal feature that runs across the entire body at mid-torso level; (2) a group of features running diagonally through the back legs from the buttocks to the knee; (3) a vertical ridge through the entire body located at the front of the saddle; (4) a diagonal ridge running through the lower front paw. The end of the tail may also have been folded. The sheet measures 0.026 and 0.030 cm thick at two edge locations. Two holes punched from front to back are 0.6 cm apart at the center of the saddle, near the upper edge of the animal’s back. The sheet metal is made from a ternary alloy of gold, silver, and copper: Composition (Weight Percent)

Au 78.4

Ag 20.4

Cu 1.2

Its composition was determined by x-ray fluorescence analysis of the surface (at the Freer and Sackler Galleries’ Department of Conservation and Scientific Research). The alloy a native placer gold, is similar to those used for objects B—440, B—441, and B—604 (Pls. 3, 4, 1). The low-relief decoration was accomplished by working the metal from the front. Tracing tools—smooth, rounded, and much like burnishers—pressed the sheet down into a resilient bedding material. As with the relief plaque B—604 (P1. 1), the use of these kinds of tools to compress metal and shape boundaries between planes produced rounded contours and relief that is gradual, not abrupt. Marks left by these burnishing-type tools are abundant in the depressions on the front surface; they are rare on the back. HL

Plate 3

BIMETALLIC EFFIGY SPOON Plate 3 Chavin, probably from Chavín de Huántar, 400—200 B.C. Gold and silver. H. 11.1 cm; W. 2.6 cm; D. 3.6 cm; Wt. 33.7 g B—440 History: Said to have been found with gold gorget B—441 in Chavín de Huántar; formerly in the collection of Juan Dalmau (of Trujillo), who acquired it before 1941, and then in the collection of Joseph Brummer; purchased by Robert Bliss from Ernest Brummer, 1947 Exhibition: Indigenous Art of the Americas, National Gallery of Art, 1948—49, 1952—62; 25 Centuries of Peruvian Art, 700 BC—1800 AD, Peabody Museum, Harvard University and Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1961; Gods with Fangs, Museum of Primitive Art, 1962; Dumbarton Oaks, 1963— Bibliography: Kelemen 1943: 252—253, p1. 207a; Lothrop 1951: 226—240; Bliss 1957: no. 300; J. Rowe 1962: fig. 23; Benson 1963: no. 347; Emmerich 1965: 8, fig. 9; Lechtman, Parsons, and Young, 1975: 14, fig. 11; Time-Life Books 1987: 157; Alva 1992: 55, lam. 41; Burger 1992a: 201, fig. 219 55

Chavín

This unique effigy spoon of gold and silver is one of the most remarkable examples of early metallurgy from the Andes. It apparently was part of a group of nineteen precious-metal artifacts purchased by Juan Dalmau of Trujillo sometime prior to 1941. Dalmau informed Rafael Larco Hoyle (1941:140— 141) that the lot had been uncovered at Chavín de Huántar. The objects were subsequently acquired by Joseph Brummer, who told archaeologist Samuel Lothrop that Dalmau had bought them in the highland town of Recuay in the Callej6n de Huaylas (Lothrop 1951: 226; cf. Coe 1993: 278—279; Boone, this volume: 7). Brummer’s comment to Lothrop lends credence to the assertion that this lot was discovered at Chavín de Huántar. One of the trails that connects Chavín de Huántar with the outside world crosses the Cordillera Blanca at Yanashayash and descends into the Callej6n de Huaylas near the modern village of Olleros; the only town nearby is Recuay Prior to the construction of the modern highway system, residents of Chavín de Huántar often journeyed along this trail to market their goods at Recuay Since visitors to Chavín de Huántar in the early 1940s were infrequent, it would have been difficult, perhaps even impossible, to sell precious Pre-Columbian objects there (even for the monetary value of their gold). Consequently it is logical that antiquities discovered at Chavín de Huántar would have been taken to Recuay for sale or for subsequent transport to the coast. The alternative possibility that the gold objects were found near Recuay itself seems unlikely since no Chavín sites have been discovered in this zone despite considerable research during the last half century If one accepts the Dalmau-Brummer account, it suggests that a hoard or grave lot larger than any of those known from Chongoyape or Kuntur Wasi may have been found at Chavín de Huántar. It is interesting in light of this hypothesis that the items comprising the Dalmau gold differs from all other lots of Chavín precious-metal objects. The Dalmau Collection consisted of four snuff spoons (Fig. 15), the Dumbarton Oaks gold gorget (B—441, P1.4) discussed subsequently a set of matching pins decorated with male heads, four nose ornaments (three of which were decorated with Chavín serpents), two tweezers, a staff or pin head, a set of two elaborately decorated earspools, a cruciform gorget, a gold necklace and a gold flute (Lothrop 1951; cf. Kelemen 1943: p1. 207a; Larco Hoyle 1941: fig. 204). It is intriguing that the precious-metal crowns and headbands so common in the Chavín 56

tombs of Chongoyape and Kuntur Wasi are absent from this lot. From a functional perspective, B—440 is a small spoon that was probably used for the inhalation of snuffs. There is compelling evidence that snuffs, probably hallucinogenic in character, were an important part of Chavín ritual; B—440 may have served as a snuff spoon for the inhalation of hallucinogens during religious ceremonies. The long troughlike cavity of B—440 is narrow and deep and would not have been appropriate for food consumption. Snuff spoons may have been part of larger ritual kits that included small ceremonial mortars and pestles in which the snuff was prepared. The latter mortars were sometimes carved in the form of jaguars or eagles. One of these, now in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, was found at Chavín de Huántar (Burger 1992a: fig. 145). B—440 and the other three golden spoons present in the Dalmau group have no analogue in more northern tombs. Although there is a tradition of carved, stone snuff spoons from the northern coast (Larco Hoyle 1941: fig. 149) and highlands (Rosas and Shady 1970: fig. lSd), these have circular rather than elongated basins. In terms of the general design and form, the closest parallel to gold “spoons” like B—440 are the bone “spatulas” (Larco Hoyle 1941: figs. 155, 158, 162) found in central and northern Peru; significantly these are often carved with religious themes. There are two holes on the back of B—440 so that it could be suspended on a cord and worn as a pendant. Tiny pellets were intentionally placed inside the three-dimensional sculpture that decorates the end of the spoon so that it could also function as a rattle, an important instrument of shamanic ceremonies. Thus, B—440 was a multifaceted piece of ritual paraphernalia, utilized as a rattle and part of the priestly costume, as well as a snuff spoon during the ceremonies of the Chavín religious cult. The decoration of the spoon is particularly interesting in light of this functional interpretation. An adult male figure is depicted crouching with his knees flexed on a small cylindrical stool or seat. Both hands hold a ceremonial conch-shell trumpet to his mouth, and he is apparently in the act of blowing it. The figure can be identified as a priest or mythical figure by the distinctive hairstyle in which the hair is drawn together to form a topknot above the forehead. This coiffure resembles the hairstyle frequently depicted on the sculptured

Chavín

Fig. 15 Four Chavin snuff spoons from the Dalmau Collection. B—440 is labeled a. (after Lothrop 1951: 236).

heads that were tenoned into the upper exterior walls of the Chavín de Huántar temple. These representations of priests or their mythical forebears are commonly shown in the process of shamanic transformation to jaguars or crested eagles, and some of the sculptures show clear indications that the transformation had been facilitated through the nasal ingestion of psychotropic substances (CordyCollins 1977a, 1980; Cané 1983; Burger 1992a). This is implied by the strands of mucus that hang from their nostrils, a result of the irritation of nasal membrane by the hallucinogenic snuff. In the tenoned heads, the transformational process is signaled by

the incorporation of non-human features into the visages of the topknotted priests, and, in some cases, the tenoned heads show the fully transformed individuals as felines or crested eagles. The figure on B—440 is a naturalistic human representation, even to the extreme of carefully tracing the delicate outline of the fingernails and toenails onto the three-dimensional, gold sheet-metal effigy However, the involvement of this figure in shamanic transformation is alluded to by an emblematic symbol for the crested or harpy eagle, which appears on the back of the figure (see Fig. 15, photo a). The figure of the raptorial bird is represented in abbre57

Chavín

viated form by combining elements of the beak, tail feathers, and taloned feet, all in classic Chavín style. As noted, the figure blows a conch-shell trumpet which, unlike the rest of the object, was made of hammered silver rather than gold. The ritual importance of shell trumpets runs throughout Peruvian prehistory; today conch shells continue to be blown in parts of the Andean highlands to mark the beginning and end of public ceremonies. The modern Quechua term pututu is applied to these items of ritual paraphernalia (cf. Tello 1937), but, in the early colonial Quechua dictionary of Diego Gonzáles de Holguin (1989: 192), the Quechua term for “la bozina de caracol grande” (trumpet of large snail shell, my translation) is given as huayllaqquepa. Gastropods of this size are not native to the coldwater currents off the Peruvian shoreline; the most common material for such shell trumpets was the Strombus, native to the warmer currents off what is now the Ecuadorian coast (Paulsen 1974). The blowing of the conch-shell trumpet was an important aspect of Chavín ritual; it is represented in the sculptured frieze that decorated the northwestern section of the Circular Plaza of Chavín de Huántar’s Old Temple (Lumbreras 1977). In this pair of twin sculptures (presumably mirrored by a second set on the southwestern side of the plaza), two anthropomorphic figures are shown in procession with the shell trumpets raised to their lips. In the plaza sculptures, the figures are wearing elaborate ceremonial garb, including crowns adorned with jaguar tails. The Strombus shell also appears on the Tello Obelisk, one of the oldest cult objects of the Chavín de Huántar temple. The transcendent importance of the conch-shell trumpet to Chavín ritual and symbolism also is made manifest in one of the two known representations of the principal deity from Chavín de Huántar’s New Temple (J. Rowe 1967: fig. 21). In this sculpture, the anthropomorphic supernatural holds a Strombus shell in one hand and a Spondylus shell in the other. Actual pieces of Strombus shell have been recovered from the Galeria de los Caracoles, one of the subterranean chamber and passageway complexes at Chavín de Huántar (Lumbreras 1977), and a Strombus-shell trumpet dating to the Chavín horizon was found near the Chiclayo airport in the Lambayeque valley (Fig. 16). More recently three Strombus-shell trumpets were uncovered in a tomb at Kuntur Wasi (Tello 1937, Onuki 1990). The example from Chiclayo has one end sawed off, indi-

58

Fig. 16 Chavin Strombus-shell trumpet. On anonymous loan to the Brooklyn Museum, L.52.1. Photograph courtesy of the museum.

cating that it could be used as a musical instrument, and, like the Dalmau spoon, it has holes drilled in it so that it could be suspended on a cord, perhaps around the neck of the priest. The Chiclayo trumpet’s exterior is carved with the image of a walking anthropomorphic figure blowing the conch-shell trumpet. A cascade of serpents issues from the trumpet, perhaps to represent the sacred character of the sounds produced. B—440’s anthropomorphic figure is shown seated with knees upraised on top of a cylindrical stool. The stool is decorated with a delicate openworked guilloche design; this convention suggests a stool made of basketry perhaps with a wooden frame. The shaman’s stool was an important piece of ceremonial paraphernalia in prehistoric societies of lowland South America (Zerries 1985), and it was likewise a sumptuary item reserved for officials and elite members of Inca society in late Andean prehistory (e.g., Menzel 1977: 10). The time depth of such stools is poorly known, perhaps because in most areas (with the exception of some areas in lower Central America and northern South America) these items were made of wood and other

Chavín

Chavín ceremonial stool of which I am aware. On the underside of the stool or the top end of the spoon, depending on one’s perspective, there is a finely traced anthropomorphic face with bulging eyes, broad nose, and ovoid mouth (Fig. 17). This face would have stared directly at the individual inhaling the snuff from the spoon, while the pellets rattled within the hollow figure. RLB

Technical Description

Fig. 17 Enlarged view of the underside of efñgy spoon B—440 showing the face on the lower disc. Photograph

This composite object is one of the earliest pieces of three-dimensional sculpture in sheet metal we have found from the central Andes. It may be the earliest that combines gold and silver.25 Made from twenty-two individually shaped pieces of thin metal sheet, all assembled in a variety of metallurgical joins, it sets the stage for a long tradition of shaping metal by working it and of creating three-dimensional volumes by soldering or welding together pre-shaped components. The metalworkers who made this spoon knew about alloying and the different temperatures at which certain metals and alloys melt relative to each other. The use of metals with different melting points for the sequential joining of parts to form a whole is clearly at work here and was deliberately managed. Furthermore, metalsmiths were experimenting with gold alloys as weld material for certain types of join. Welding and sweat welding were employed, though not completely mastered. There is evidence that alloy gold, in the form of fine particles, was packed into voids at seams that needed to be built up solid. When heated, the powder coalesced and effected the join through sintering and sweating. This dual use of weld metal, to build up form and, simultaneously to join parts, is another characteristic of central Andean goldsmithing. The same technique has been observed on several hollow, gold miniatures from the Ica valley made of many tiny pieces of sheet (Lechtman 1988: figs. 30.2, 30.4, 30.52—30.54). Spoon B—440 is interesting and important as a forerunner to a tradition of Andean metal sculpture that continued, largely unchanged, through the Inca hegemony The Inca figurines in the Dumbar-

by Joseph Mills.

organic materials rather than stone. The stool shown on B—440 is the only representation of a

25Lothrop (1941: 260, p1. xx-c) illustrates and describes a Chavin-style pin with a spherical gold head and silver shaft from a woman’s grave near Chongoyape. The analysis ofthe pin shaft is given here in the table of alloy compositions, p. 60.

59

Chavín

ton Oaks collection (B—474 and B—606, B—607, B— 608, Pls. 89, 88) are made on the same general principles as those already utilized here. Alloys The sheet gold of figure B—440 is made of a ternary alloy of gold, silver, and copper. The determination was made by x-ray fluorescence analysis (at the Freer and Sackler Galleries’ Department of Conservation and Scientific Research) of an area on the torso. The alloy probably represents native gold, re-

trieved from placer deposits and melted down to form ingots large enough for the manufacture of metal sheet. Central Andean placer gold is typically high in silver and may contain minor amounts of copper. Such gold is often referred to as “electrum.” William Root’s analyses (1949: 11) of gold objects from the Ica valley region on the south coast of Peru indicate that many were made of placer gold with an average composition close to that of B—440: 76 percent gold, 20 percent silver, and 4 percent copper. He cites comments by sixteenth-century Span-

Placer Gold from Ecuador and Peru Locale

Composition (Weight Percent) Au

Tumbes River valley (northwest Peru) Chinchipe River valley (northern Peru) Ucayali River valley (northern Peru)

72.95 81 75

Ag

Cu

26.34 0.73 remainder not reported remainder is silver

(Source: After Petersen 1970)

Composition of Gold Alloys and Silver Alloys

in Chavín and Chavin-style Objects Collection or

Composition

Object

Analysis no.

B-440 B-441

(Weight Percent)

Au

Ag

Cu

Pb

Figure on spoon

72.0

24.5

3.6

n.d.

Conch shell

25.6

72.2

2.0

0.2

Round gorget with boss

74.9

22.4

2.7

n.d.

(Dalmau group)

MIT 3067

Janabarriu Phase ornament, excavated at Chavin de Huántar

70.4

26.3

2.9

n.d.

Root 1345

Cruciform gorget (Dalmau group)

72.5

23.7

3.8

n.d.

Root 1346

Nose ornament,

71.6

24.2

4.2

n.d.

71.0

22.0

6.8

n.d.

26.0

74.0

0.0

n.d.

Root 1347 Root— Key n.d. MIT Root

60

dangler (Dalmau group) Nose ornament, ring (Dalmau group) Pin shaft, Chongoyape

not detected Analysis performed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with electron microbeam probe (see Lechtman, appendix F, in Burger 1984) Analysis performed by William Root by wet chemical methods (see Root’s table 14, in Lothrop 1951)

Chavín

ish chroniclers who describe the stream gold of Peru as containing silver or copper and ranging between 18 and 20K, or 75 to 83 percent gold (Root 1949:11). Georg Petersen (1970: 49 and table 3) compiled chemical analyses of placer golds retrieved from rivers in southern Ecuador, northwest Peru, and northern Peru. They are similar to the compositions of the Chavín objects tabulated here. The analytical table of object chemistries (bottom, page 60) compares the composition of B—440 with the composition of a Janabarriu Phase gold ornament (MIT 3067) excavated by Burger at Chavín de Huántar (Burger 1984) and compositions of those gold objects, for which analyses are available, that Burger describes as belonging originally to the Dalmau group and probably uncovered at Chavín de Huántar; one of these is the Dumbarton Oaks gorget B—441. The others are a cruciform gorget (Root 1345) and several parts of a nose ornament (Root 1346, 1347). The uniformity in alloy composition among the five objects is striking. They could have been made from the same batch or similar batches of metal from a common source. The compositions of ten Chavin-style gold and silver objects excavated at Kuntur Wasi (Cajamarca) have been determined in Japan by the excavators and their colleagues (Hirao et al. 1992; Kato 1993). Semi-quantitative x-ray fluorescence methods gave the following results. Gold Alloys and Silver Alloys in Objects Excavated at Kuntur Wasi Tomb No.

Object

Composition (Weight

Percent) Au Ag 1 1

Gold crown Small gold sheet

85 91

15 9

2

Gold crown

2 2

Plaque Pectoral

2

Pectoral

63 73 76 79

37 27 24 21

3

Two earrings

65 63

35 37

4 4

Pendant Pendant of gold and silver

89

11

90

10

30

70

The investigators report that these gold-silver alloys contain small amounts of copper and sometimes iron; no other elements were found as contami-

nants. The copper content is related to the concentration of silver in the alloys, and there seem to be two systematic relationships in the copper content, leading the analysts to suggest that there probably were more than two sources of silver supply (Hirao et al. 1992: 30). Comparing the Kuntur Wasi analyses with the compositions determined for the Dumbarton Oaks Chavín objects and others reported in the table on page 60, it seems clear that some of the Kuntur Wasi alloys were made by melting together gold and silver; their silver contents (e.g., 35—37 percent) appear significantly higher than the concentrations found in north Peruvian gold placer deposits, whose silver content hovers around 25 percent. Other objects from the Kuntur Wasi tombs have compositions close to those of the Dumbarton Oaks and Dalmau items. On the whole, the Kuntur Wasi objects exhibit a much broader range of alloy compositions than do the Chavín and Chavin-style artifacts reported in the previous table. The silver sheet used for the conch shell of B—440 is a ternary alloy of silver, gold, and copper. It is an intentional alloy probably made by melting together metallic silver and native gold. This would account for the high concentration of gold in the alloy and for the presence of some lead, introduced with the silver. The proportion of silver to gold ensures a silver-colored metal. For purposes of comparison, the Chavín and Chavin-style table includes Root’s analysis (in Lothrop 1951) of a pin from the north coast site of Chongoyape, the only other object of possible Chavín style made of gold and silver parts. The spherical pin head is gold; the shaft appears to be silver in color. The composition of the silver-looking shaft is extremely close to that of the B—440 silver conch shell. Altering the colors of gold and silver through alloying was a widespread practice of Chavín metal technology Another impressive example of its use is treated in the technical discussion of B—442 (P1. 5). Rattle The pellets that rattle inside the figure must be quite small and made of a low-density material. They do not appear on the x-radiographs of the object (see Fig. 18). Suspension Two circular holes located on the back of the figure, between the shoulders, served to suspend it. There is no indication of the kind of material used for the suspending cord. The holes were punched from the 61

Chavín

Feet: one for each leg Arms: left and right side Spoon: scoop and cylinder body; two cylinder ends Conch shell: left and right side

Fig. 18 X-radiograph of effigy spoon B—440. The seams on the head and torso are visible. X-radiograph by Paul Jett. outer surface through to the hollow interior. They were made before the torso was assembled, facilitating removal of all burr around the exterior rim and most of the burr on the interior. Distance between holes: ~ 0.75 cm; hole diameter: 0.014 cm. Shaping and Decorating the Parts The object is an assembly of twenty-two individual parts. These are indicated in the diagram of Figure 19. Head: face, back of head, topknot, two ears Torso: front, back Legs: left and right side 62

The overall form of the larger pieces (e.g., the front and back of the head and front and back of the torso) may have been achieved by hammering and raising over an anvil, but anatomical details (eyes, nose, mouth, fingernails, and toenails) and all decorative features (the harpy eagle on the figure’s back, the face on the underside of the spoon, and the guilloche pattern on the spoon cylinder) were rendered by working the metal with tracing tools, primarily from the front, on a bed of resilient material. All such tracing, whether to establish volumetric form, such as the nose or mouth, or to provide linear detail, such as locks of hair, was carried out on the appropriate part before it was joined to a neighbor. Inside the sunken eyes, there is a traced cross hatch pattern on the eyeballs. The same tool used to detail the ears left its mark and is identifiable in the traced outline of the raptorial bird on the figure’s back. The slightly proud guilloche motif on the cylinder of the spoon was laid out and raised from the back when the cylinder was still flat (see Fig. 19); the holes were punched at the same time, from back to front, and the burrs removed later. Substantial tooling of the guilloche appears to have refined its form after the cylinder was closed. Figure 17 shows the face traced on the disc that closes the base of the cylinder. The nose may have been raised slightly from the back of the disc, but the tracing was accomplished from the front. The eye pupils are holes punched through from the back of the sheet; burrs remain. The scoop portion of the spoon was partly formed and undoubtedly finished by sinking the metal into a resilient backing; the prominent hammer facets on the concave surface indicate such a procedure and provide surface texture. This same kind of faceted surface, though less pronounced, occurs on the front torso of the figure. The rear torso, like the convex surface of the spoon, is more highly burnished, certainly to provide an adequate ground for the traced eagle motif; the buttocks retain some faceting. The general treatment of the metal surfaces on this object is similar in quality to the surface treatment of the disc with central boss, B—441 (P1. 4). Both juxtapose textured and smooth areas. These

Chavín

I~--~~~

Fig. 19 Schematic drawing of effigy spoon B—440’s construction: heavy lines outline individual, shaped parts; dashed lines indicate join locations. The diagram of the spoon shows stages in its forming and assembly. Drawingby Elizabeth Wahle.

objects differ markedly from gorget B—442 and plaque B—604 (Pls. 5, 1), for example, which emphasize highly burnished and polished metal fields. Joining the Parts The seams and joins referred to in this discussion are diagrammed in Figure 19; heavy lines represent the borders of an element (e.g., the rear torso or the face), dashed lines locate joins between elements. All joins are metallurgical. The Figure Head. The front and back of the head abut along their common perimeter; there is no overlap

at the seam. The join was achieved by sweat welding these opposite edges. X-radiographs of the figure (Fig. 18) reveal that the weld is intermittent along the seam; the join is tacked at sites where surface metal sweated, ran into the seam, and solidified there. Long stretches of the join are invisible; in the finishing operations, metal from adjacent surfaces was pushed over onto the join and burnished there. Patches of seam not covered in this manner exhibit a once molten, now dendritic structure. Torso. The lateral torso seams are so carefully finished that the joining procedure is no longer apparent. X-radiographs indicate clearly that front and back torso abut and are welded together, prob63

Chavín

ably by a sweat weld. There is no evidence of any added weld material at the join, either on the figure itself or in the radiograph, but the radiograph records tiny spherical pores along the join which were once gas bubbles in the molten metal sweated into the seam. This join is more continuous, thus sturdier, than the sweat weld on the head. At the base of the figure, in the buttock area, the back of the torso fits inside the front, in an overlap seam, but the nature of the join is obscured by the tight crowding of anatomy in that region. Arms. The two parts of each arm appear to have been joined by the technique used for the head and torso. There is no evidence of solder or of weld metal having been added at the seams. It further appears that the inner arm, closest to the torso, is fitted slightly inside the outer arm, forming a barely overlapping seam. Some sections of the join exhibit a slight difference in level on either side, a result of the overlap configuration and of the final burnishing of metal from one surface over and onto the other. Burnishing has hidden large portions of these joins, but evidence of once-molten metal at the seams occurs on both arms. The length of join at the underside of the arms is not well finished, probably because it could not be seen. Legs. The seams formed along the midplane of each leg exhibit a somewhat different aspect from those of the head, torso, and arms, although the leg joins are welds and may be sweat welds. Opposite edges of the halves of each leg meet in a butt seam. The back of the lower legs and the underside of the thighs experienced overheating and an excess of metal flow. This entire zone appears to have been heated locally to produce sweating and welding. The joins, normally hidden from view, were left as made, with no further surface finishing. In contrast, the seam along the upper thigh that continues down the front of the lower leg (between knee and ankle) is finished with great care. The lower-leg seams exhibit features not apparent elsewhere on the figure: excess metal that stands proud of the seam, on either side or on both sides of the join. The general configuration at the join is shown in Figure 19a. This excess metal takes the form of extremely thin strips of gold that run parallel to the seam and are pressed down onto one or both seam edges. They may represent thin ribbons of weld metal introduced at the seam, or they may be long burrs of metal deliberately raised by abrading the free edges, then pressed down onto their respective 64

Plan

Join Section

ZI:i

i2~~~-’~~.

Join —~~/~~5~--

Proud Metal

Fig. 19a Diagram of the lower-leg seams of efñgy spoon B—440 showing the proud metal. Drawing by Elizabeth Wahle.

edge. In either case, these strips, made of the same alloy as the leg metal, served as weld filler material at the seam between the two abutting edges. During local heating of the seam, the extreme thinness of these features relative to the leg metal would cause them to heat quickly to sweat or melt and to run into the seam before the leg metal reached sweat temperature. Removal of the heat source allowed this molten material to solidify effecting the join. Sections through these lower-leg joins (see Fig. 19a) show their characteristic features: proud metal that travels alongside the seam on one or both sides, and a slight depression at the line of the join, filled with once-molten metal that shrank upon freezing. Careful burnishing of these joins tended to spread the proud metal laterally giving the joins a broader appearance. This technique is extremely sophisticated. It has been documented, in slightly different form, on a set of gold jaguars from the Lambayeque valley that date to the end of the Early Intermediate Period or the beginning of the Middle Horizon (Lechtman, Parsons, and Young 1975; Lechtman 1988). The principle is the same, but the spoon figure presents a much earlier example. The Spoon Figure 19 shows the construction of the spoon. Three joins close and secure the cylindrical portion:

Chavín

at the vertical seam, formed by the two short sides of the rectangular sheet, and along the circumference of the upper and lower discs. All three joins were accomplished by sweat welding. They are so finely rendered that details of their construction are visible only on an x-radiograph, where intermittent tacking and spherical pores characterize the sweated join. The vertical seam is an overlap; the upper disc rests on top of the open cylinder, but the circumferential join is hidden by careful burnishing of the seam; the lower disc fits up inside the base of the cylinder, flush with the edge plane. The Conch Shell The fragile sheet-silver shell is broken and has been reinforced to preserve its form. This modern intervention has made it difficult to determine how the two halves of the shell may have been joined or if they were ever joined (see Fig. 18). It is possible that one side was joined to the figure’s left hand and the other side to the right hand. There is good evidence that the middle finger of the proper right hand was soldered to the top of one half of the shell with what appears to be silver solder. But the details of the articulation of the shell with respect to its own integrity as an independent item and with respect to the figure’s hands are now obscured. All the joins on the constituent parts of the figure and on the spoon are welded joins, and most if not all are sweat welds. Those on the spoon are more expertly done than those on the figure. The sweat weld technique maintains at the seam the metal color of the adjacent surfaces. No added metal is introduced at the seam. Assembling the Whole In assembling the parts of the figure and in joining the figure and spoon, metal was added at the join sites. Many of the joins exhibit similar characteristics: the added metal is close to the color of the elements being joined; the added metal is often spongy or granular in appearance and may have been introduced in the form of tiny bits, resembling a coarse powder; the material at the join sintered or melted partially but rarely reached a temperature at which it ran freely along the join. In some locations the added metal appears to have been packed into recesses in order to build up the form, increase the surface area over which bonding could occur, and strengthen the metallurgical join. The composition of the added metal has not been determined. It may be weld metal, but it is more likely a gold

alloy solder whose melting point is somewhat lower than that of the gold alloy sheet. The Joins Ear to head. Added metal was introduced primarily behind each ear; partial melting and sintering occurred; the join has a spongy granular appearance; the configuration of added metal suggests complete melting was never intended. Topknot to head. X-radiography reveals the topknot as a hollow, independent element joined to the head; the join appears granular and as if metal reached a pasty consistency during heating. Head to torso. Anatomically the figure has no neck. The head is attached directly to the torso; only the added joining material makes a transition between them. Both head and torso are closed forms; the upper torso has neither hole nor collar to seat the head. At two locations at the back of the figure, metal added at the seam melted and flowed to make the join. Elsewhere, the join is discontinuous; small patches of added metal appear to have melted and solidified locally At the front of the figure, the metal at the join is granular and sintered. Here the appearance is of coarse metal powder having been packed into the juncture between head and chest, in part to build up the pronounced declivity The material was heated until sintering and some incipient melting occurred. As a result of this variety of joining events, the juncture between head and torso is discontinuous, bumpy and irregular. The added metal may have a melting point somewhat lower than that of the gold sheet. On the other hand, it may be of the same composition as the sheet, which might explain why it was introduced in particle form, to facilitate sintering and some sweating, effecting the join without bringing the metal sheet to its melting point. Arms and legs to torso. The front and back torso parts shown in Figure 19 indicate the mechanism by which partial sockets were created to accommodate the upper arm and upper thigh prior to their articulation with the torso. The rear torso provides four short extensions, almost like cap sleeves, that protrude toward the front at shoulder height and thigh level. With the limb in place, this cap or exterior socket rim is pressed down to hug the limb mechanically maintaining its position. On the front torso, the gently curved chest and abdomen bend in abruptly at the sockets to form flat, interior rimlike surfaces that complete the socket channel. Both interior and exterior socket rims provide large surface 65

Chavín

Assembly

1

Joining of like parts made of the same metal/alloy

Sweat weld

T1: surface melting temperature of all parts

2

Joining together of previously sweat-welded

Weld or solder;

T2: sintering or

sintering and scant liquid

sweating

same metal/alloy

formation of added material

temperature of the weld/solder material T2 < T1

Joining of two complete forms, each with sweat-

Solder

T3:

elements, all made of the

3

welded and welded or soldered joins; both made of the same metal/alloy

areas of potential contact with the limbs over which metallurgical bonding can occur. A range of join types, similar to the variety exhibited at the neck, characterizes the socket joins. Metal that appears to have been introduced as coarse bits was packed into the free space between a limb and its interior socket rim, In the case of the thighs, this material was also used to build up and fill out the form on the exterior, at the angle between thigh and torso. When heated, the packing may have sweated, sintered, and remained granular, or partially melted and run along the seam. All three stages in the history of the alloy’s behavior under increasingly elevated temperature are visible at the sockets. These joins are rough and even shabby but they are strong. Where the exterior socket rim metal presses close upon a limb surface, sweating of either or both surfaces often produced a bond. None of the socket joins on any of the limbs is finished with the care common to the sweatwelded joins. Surfaces that could not be seen were left as joined. Feet to legs. Each foot is shaped from a single piece of metal sheet. A hole cut in the ankle area accommodates the end of the leg, and a short rim raised around the hole provides some mechanical fit as well as increased surface area for bonding. Metal added around the rim circumference melted

66

Temperature

Join Type

Stage

melting temperature of the solder T3