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INDICE
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Constituent beads were placed in an orderly manner to form a
coherent cluster. For example, the largest cluster featuring
predominantly shell and amethyst beads shows a concentric ring
layout. The adjacent cluster has rows of sodalite and quartz beads
forming cross-sectional loops (Photograph8). In fact, short
segments of the cotton string that linked these beads were found in
the latter. In other words, these clusters consist of carefully
piled strings of beads sorted by material and to a lesser degree by
size and shape.
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Photograph 8. A bead cluster found
in Niche 1 in the Huaca Loro East Tomb that shows how sodalite,
shell, amber and quartz beads were strung and grouped together by
size, shape and material. Photograph by Y. Yoshii.
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In the modern jewelry trade, these sorts of strung beads are
called "falls" (J. Griffin, 1997, personal
communication). It is how beads are sorted and transported. We
suggest that the shell and mineral beads used in goldsmithing were
imported on strings pre-formed_polished, and drilled; beads of
appropriate size and shape were then selected from large caches of
beads, and perhaps given some minor subsequent modifications.
Insets such as shell, turquoise (Mohs' scale of 5-6) and sodalite
(5.5-6) are all relatively soft and would have been much easier to
reshape to fit the setting than the converse.
To date, we have not found any Sicán lapidary workshops in or
outside of the site of Sicán. In fact, no definite mineral bead
workshops have been identified in Peru. The two known
|Spondylus bead worshops are situated close to shell
harvesting locations on the Ecuadorian central coast and Peruvian
far north coast (Tumbez) (Marcos and Norton 1981; Hocquenghem and
Peña 1994). Along with other materials (e.g., gold nuggets and
tropical bird feathers) for sumptuary goods production at Sicán,
diverse beads may have been exchanged for local agricultural
produce and utilitarian items of arsenical copper bronze (Shimada
1985). Overall, limited modification of drilled beads as insets is
seen as a relatively minar task conducted at ceramic and metal
workshops.
The 1995 excavation of a walled-in area along the east side of
the Huaca Loro North Platform (Fig. 3) yielded fragmentary gold
foil, polished hammerstone, tuyeres (ceramic blowtube tips), and
molds, as well as heat-discolored areas, pointing to the presence
of a Middle Sicán goldsmithing workshop there, but no indications
of lapidary work. We expect that workshops involved in sumptury
goods production were situated near the pyramidal mounds at Sicán.
Unfortunately, decades of intense looting that even employed heavy
earth-moving machines has extensively disturbed the suspected
areas, severely hampering our search for craft workshops. An
inferred area of craft production was found in 1986 between Huaca
Las Ventanas and Huaca La Botija mounds. Excavation revealed the
remains ofwell-built room complexes with narrow benches and
scorched spots on plastered floors as well as small clusters of
prills (tiny metal droplets) and a few broken tuyeres.
Excavations of craft workshops at pre- and post-Middle Sicán
sites offer important comparative data and insights. At the Moche V
urban capital of Pampa Grande in the Lambayeque valley (e.g.,
Shimada 1978, 1994a) craft workshops were closely situated and
accessible to each other via walled streets. In Sector H, copper
working, weaving, chicha (fermented maize drink) and food
preparation areas were found clustered and interconnected. In
Sector D, an inferred ceramic workshop producing reduced ware
vessels and figurines was just a few doors clown from a metal
workshop with chisels, discarded needles and ingot mold fragments.
Both sectors were contiguous to the the political and religious
seat of the Moche V polity, the centrally situated, walled compound
that contained the enormous truncated pyramid of Huaca Fortaleza.
Ongoing excavations at the base of Huaca de la Luna at Moche (Moche
IV contexts) also suggest a similar pattern of clustered craft
activities such as pottery making and metalworking (Chapdelaine
1997).
In addition, at the Chimú capital of Chan Chan (Moche valley),
Topie ( 1990) documented an aggregation of craft workshops and
cross-craft interaction primarily in two areas called
"barrios" (commoner residence-workshops) and
"retainer areas." In the barrios, Topic (1990:
156) observed that "Workshops were specialized spaces but
did not necessarily specialize in one product." One
workshop south of Ciudadela Laberinto (one of 11 named, gigantic,
rectangular enclosures believed to have served as royal
administrative, residential, and burial centers) appears to have
been primarily involved in woodworking but there was also evidence
of spinning, weaving, and metalworking (Topie 1990:158). He
suggests that it "specialized in inlay," and that
metal and woodworkers as well as weavers "plied their
trades under a common roof." Topic (1990:164) concludes
that "distinet specialties" were associated
within individual shops, bloeks, and barrios. A general impression
of the craft production in the retainer areas that are contiguous
to the Ciudadelas, better built and more formally arranged, is that
they were involved in finishing work by higher status craftsmen. Y
et, they also revealed "the same mixture of weaving and
metalworking activity" (Topic 1990:158-159). Overall,
Topic (1990: 164-165) and I have reached the same conclusion
regarding cross-craft interaction or what he calls
"horizontal integration": such organization of
"specialists allows for more immediate cooperation between
them to produce compound products such as the copper-inlaid
carved-wood hand . . . and pieces of clothing that combine
feathers, metal, and cloth. Additionally, horizontal integration
allowed for direct contact between woodworkers, who probably made
many weaving and spinning tools, and the weavers and spinners who
used them." I concur with his assessment that
"Horizontal integration is, in fact, the most logical
manner of organizing craft production . . . to produce complex
elite products" (Topic 1990: 165). I am less certain that
such organization characterized "large-scale production of
utilitarian products" (Topic 1990: 165). To what extent
the same individuals served multiple roles as specialists of
different crafts remains unclear. The intensity of production in
the barrios and retainer areas also needs to be clarified.
|Tumbaga sheet-wrapped ceramics and painted cloth with
|tumbaga sheet backing raise the important issue of the
social and symbolic significance of cross-craft products. While
both classes of artifacts to date have been found only in elite
tombs, various lines of evidence point to their use in nonfunerary
contexts.
In the Huaca Loro East Tomb, the wooden shafts of scepters, a
litter, and other wooden objects in elite tombs were wrapped in
sheetmetal. A miniature representation of elaborate ritual activity
on the back of a Middle Sicán wooden litter in the Gold of Peru
Museum in Lima (Carcedo 1989) clearly includes scepters covered in
gilded sheetmetal. In this sense, it would not surprise us to learn
that wrapped ceramic vessels were utilized in non-funerary
contexts. In general, it seems that what was critical in the
wrapping of objects with gilded sheetmetal was a symbolic
transformation that imparted its symbolic value to products of
other media. But, were ceramic vessel forms and even ideologically
charged iconography subordinate to the shiny metallic cover?
The symbolic value of gold is taken for granted in the Andes
(e.g., Hosler 1994; Lechtman 1984a,b). Other project personnel and
I (e.g., Cleland and Shimada 1992,1994, in press) have argued that
high-karat gold alloy objects constituted the Middle Sicán
"aesthetic locus," what J. Maquet (1979) defines
as a category of object or medium of artistic expression that is
subject to the highest performance standards for the highest
consumer expectations of a given culture. This "aesthetic
locus" often becomes the technical and stylistic
"pace-setter" and mar be actively emulated by
other classes or media of expression or remain quite exclusive
through control of raw materials, skilled artisans and/or
imageries. Compare the masks that covered the faces of the
principal personages of the Huaca Loro East and West tombs with
that associated with a seated adult male excavated in a pit (ea.
1.5 x 0.8 m and 3 m deep) between Huaca La Botija and Huaca El
Corte. The first two were of high- and low-karat gold,
respectively, while the latter was a totally mineralized
"copper" mask (Alva 1986). The metallic
composition of this mask has not been analyzed and mar well have
been a copper-silver alloy. The quality of metal (i.e., proportions
of precious metals) used in the excavated Sicán masks appears to
vary inversely with the complexity of manufacturing technique
(e.g., fashioned out of a single sheet versus multiple sheets
mechanically joined together), and presence or absence as well as
quality of shell or mineral inserts, as well as stylistic and
iconographic details. In fact, it appears that prestigious
high-karat gold masks were emulated using less noble metals.
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Figure 8: Cane impressions found on
the face of a crenellated wall at the east base of the Huaca Las
Ventanas truncated pyramid. Drawing by Izumi Shimada.
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However, Sicán painted cloth with gilded sheetmetal backing
calls into question the above vision of the primacy of gold color
in the prehispanic Andean world.
As suggested for Early Horizon painted cotton cloth from Karwa
on the South Coast of Peru (e.g., Burger 1992L we believe that
Middle Sicán painted cloth also served as a backdrop for outdoor
rituals. The discovery of impressions of a cane framework on the
face of a crenellated wall that enclosed the Huaca Las Ventanas
temple suggests they mar have been used as replaceable wall
decorations (Fig. 8). In either case, these cloths could have been
placed relatively easily to create a physical setting for rituals.
Imageries and overall size could be adjusted in accordance with the
nature, location, and the scale of the ceremonies to be undertaken.
However, given their relatively large size and complex (and even
fragile) constructions, it is doubtful that they were moved
frequently or over long distances.
Why do these painted cloths have sheetmetal backing? It is
doubtful that it served any structural function since much of the
support necessary for the display of the painted images was
provided by calle and wooden poles. The thin layer of fine cotton
fibers between the painted cloth and sheetmetal probably provided a
flat, soft cushion on which to lar and protect the sheetmetal.
Given the corroded state of sheetmetal samples analyzed, we can
only estimate their subsurface composition. Intentional or not,
gilding would have made the sheet appear to be relatively rich in
gold or gold and silver. But, to whom was the gilded image
directed, to the participants in the rituals conducted within the
space enclosed by the painted cloth, or to those outside the
enclosure? Were the painted imageries more important than the color
of gold or silver to the ritual participants or vice versa? Related
to this, why did the Sicán people wrap ceramic vessels decorated
with religious motifs? If precious metals were symbolically so
important, why didn't the Sicán artisans simply create religious
imageries in gold and silver alloy sheetmetal, instead of painting
them? They were certainly capable of doing so and had access to
sufficient supplies of such metals as attested to by the some 500
kg of scrap found in the Huaca Loro East Tomb.
In fact, the impressive range of gold-silver-copper alloys and
varied degrees and kinds of surface depletion among metal objects
recovered from the three excavated Middle Sicán elite tombs
(including a partially used ingot found within a scrap pile of the
Huaca Loro East Tomb) indicates a correspondingly wide range of
golden to silvery colors and that at least a good part of the
variation correlated with artifact types and their mechanical
properties (Boissonnas 1997; Gordus et al. 1995; Gordus and Shimada
1994; McLoughlin 1996; Merkel et al. 1994; Perkins 1997; Shimada
and Griffin 1994). It would be difficult to determine what
constituted prestigious gold color to prehispanic Andean people. We
are still a long way from understanding emic perceptions of the
relative importance of the multiple factors that contribute in
producing given colors in precious metals.
|Conclusion
In sum, this paper demonstrated the complex complementary and
supplementary relationships among metallurgy and other
contemporaneous crafts using Middle Sicán cases. Many of the
precious metal objects were either aggregates of the products of
multiple crafts or more the unique products of continuous, creative
interplay among crafts. This paper also raised various specific
issues that merit our attention: (1) The nature of cross-craft
examples - Were they limited to luxury goods of limited production
or did they include more mundane items?; (2) Organizational
dimensions How widespread was the "horizontal
integration" of crafts documented on the north coast of
Peru, as opposed to the discrete colonies of specialists
("vertical integration") often mentioned in the
case of the Inka political economy (e.g., Brumfiel and Earle 198;
D'Altroy and Earle 1985)? To what extent were the same individuals
specialists of different crafts in making these objects? What were
the physical and social arrangements of the crafts persons involved
- did they ply their trade under the same roof? Did they belong to
the same social groups like the historically documented
|parcialidades on the north coast of Peru?; and (3) use and
"meaning" - Were these products used only in
ritual contexts? Was the significance of these
"composite" objects the sum of or greater than
its parts?
This paper also serves as a plea for rethinking of current
medium-specific conceptions of and approaches to studying craft
production. There has been a welcome trend toward the integration
of data and insights from excavations of production sites,
replicative experiments, ethnoarchaeology, and analysis of finished
products. Yet, modeling of craft production organization remains
predominantly medium specific, treating each craft as autonomous
and/or spatially isolated. Overall, the extent and nature of
cross-craft interaction and the conditions under which it occurs
deserve much more attention. As we delve ever more deeply into
specialized areas of prehispanic metallurgy, it mar be useful at
times to take a holistic perspective and ponder the place of
metallurgy within the broader spectrom of ancient arts and
crafts.
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