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Cire Perdue Copper Casting in Pre-Columbian Mexico: An Experimental Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Stanley Long
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Abstract

Sahagún's General History of the Things of New Spain, a Nahuatl text completed in 1555, contains an ethnographic description of cire perdue gold casting. Aboriginal copper casting was not described. However, it is believed that his gold-casting description also constitutes a basically valid description of copper casting. To test this, experiments were undertaken to cast copper bells following Sahagún's description of gold casting and using native materials whenever possible. From the resultant successful casting of several copper bells it is inferred that the above belief is valid.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 30 , Issue 2Part1 , October 1964 , pp. 189 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1964

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