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Aboriginal Gilding in Panama

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

S. K. Lothrop  and
Paul Bergsøe
S. K. Lothrop
Affiliation:
Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass.
Paul Bergsøe
Affiliation:
Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass.
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Abstract

Lothrop places on record the original study of the “mise en coleur” gilding of Coclé objects which Bergsøe had completed in 1940. The Coclé specimens were made of a copper-gold alloy with low gold content, and were cast in molds. Because such an alloy corrodes easily, the exact composition of the Coclé alloy could not be determined. The Coclé goldsmiths did not use the hammered overlay, mercury gilding, or leaf gilding processes, but rather the “mise en coleur” process in which the copper is removed from the surface of the alloy leaving a blackish-brown, spongy gold deposit as an overlay. This spongy overlay is compressed and returned to a golden color by hammering and burnishing. The surface copper was probably dissolved by ammonium carbonate derived from urine.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , July 1960 , pp. 106 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1960

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References

Bergsøe, Paul 1938. The Gilding Process and the Metallurgy of Copper and Lead Among the Pre-Columbian Indians. Ingeniøvidenskobelige Skrifter. Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Lothrop, S. K. 1937. Coclé, Part 1. Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 7. Cambridge.Google Scholar