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The Work of Metallurgical Artificers at Machu Picchu, Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John W. Rutledge  and
Robert B. Gordon
John W. Rutledge
Affiliation:
127 Dunning Rd., New Canaan, CT 06840
Robert B. Gordon
Affiliation:
Kline Geology Laboratory, Yale University, Box 6666, New Haven, CT 06511
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Abstract

The 168 metal artifacts collected at Machu Picchu in 1912 by Hiram Bingham have been examined for evidence that metallurgical artificers worked at this site in pre-Columbian times. Fifteen artifacts have been identified as metal stock, work in progress, or waste materials from metallurgical processes. Bronze was made by alloying metallic tin and copper and was cast into both finished objects and stock for subsequent forging. Hammering was done with stone tools, but bronze chisels were also in use. Silver-copper alloys were worked, but this material was not held to compositional limits as close as those for bronze. No alloys containing arsenic and relatively little evidence of the use of sheet metal were found.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , July 1987 , pp. 578 - 594
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1987

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