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INDICE
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There are several gilded and silvered copper sheet components
attached to the head. Each ear was made from two triangular sheets
of gilded copper crimped together on two sides. Two tabs extend
from the bottom edge of each sheet. The tabs are paired with those
on the matching half of the ears and each pair is inserted into a
slot. On the interior of the head the tabs are loosely fixed and
together they function as hinges that hold the ears in place but
allow them to flap forward and back. Two strip s of silvered copper
teeth-a full mouth including canines-are fixed in the upper and
lower jaws using a conventional tab and slot arrangement. A reddish
pink tongue, made from a slightly curved strip of unadorned copper
sheet, dangles from the fox's jaw and moves from side to side. The
whiskers, each formed by the insertion of a round wire through a
pair of holes, one on each side of the muzzle, were made of
unadorned copper as well. Round gilded copper dangles are suspended
from the inside of the ears and under the chin.
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The eyes consist of white shell
inlays held in place with a natural resin bulked with a mixture of
ground inorganic materials. The pupils are now filled with such a
resin but it is possible that they originally were inlaid with
stone or metal.
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Figure 14: Fox head ornament,
gilded copper, silvered copper and copper, Moche, from Loma Negra,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Jane Costello Goldberg, in
memory of Arnold 1. Goldberg, 1982 (1982.392.10).
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The smaller fox head is constructed in a similar manner (fig.
15). The main components are gilded copper, and the tongue, the
inside of the mouth, the eyes and the whiskers are plain
copper.
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Lacking are
the white teeth of silvered copper. It appears that the teeth were
originally inlaid, probably with white shell, as in the case of the
fox head from Huaca de la Luna (Tones, 1979, fig. 19). Evidence of
this is seen in the slight zigzag impressions in the remains of a
granular brown adhesive present on the inside of the lower
jaw.
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The fox heads are not only three-dimensional, but extending
toward the viewer from a headband, turban or other support, they
have substantial depth. Projecting parts, such as the ears and the
dangles, and especially the whiskers, add to this illusion of a
creature inhabiting space. Moving components, with their glittering
metal surfaces and characteristic sounds were important in the
conceptions of both the fox head and disk ornaments, while the
sense of lightness or airiness, the subtly layered spatial
organization, and the use of color to unite and animate surfaces,
are typical of only the disks. Observers of the fox heads are not
meant to be aware of the filmy character of the gold and silver
layers conveyed by the disk ornaments, and the colors of gold,
silver and copper are used in a different way.
These animal images are not intellectual constructions conveying
information about the nature of surfaces, they are living creatures
with physical attributes that are part of their identity as foxes.
The metal colors help to delineate these attributes: yellow gold to
indicate fur, reddish pink copper to highlight the whiskers and
tongues, and the flesh on the inner mouth, and the whitish silver
(or shell) to show the teeth. Moche imagery is full of visual
abstractions, and is far from any system of representation that
could be called realistic. Yet in the case of the fox head
ornaments, metal color is used to create some sense of
verisimilitude, to highlight the features that make it a fox, not
to convey an accurate coloration, but some illusion of a living
creature and its natural attributes.
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Figure 15: Fox head ornament,
gilded copper and copper, Moche, from Loma Negra, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Gift of Jane Costello Goldberg, in memory of Arnold
I. Goldberg, 1982 (1982.392.3).
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The presence of a few depletion-gilded copper sheets among the
Loma Negra corpus is intriguing. Is the brilliant but shortlived
use of an electrochemical deposition method on the Loma Negra
metalwork reflective of indigenous Piura Valley traditions, and how
does its use correspond to aesthetic goals of artisans working on
the Loma Negra corpus? Lechtman (1984b, p. 63), in a discussion
comparing electrochemical deposition with depletion gilding,
describes the two techniques as "cover and hide"
and "development and enhancement", respectively.
The precious metal surfaces attained using enrichment techniques
that concentrate gold and silver in the substrate on the surface
". . . merely enhanced an aspect of the metal that is
inherent to it . . ." (Lechtman, 1984b, p. 63). As
mentioned earlier, both the disk ornaments and the electrochemical
deposition plating method used to create them are unique to the
Piura Valley. The gold and silver layers do not cover or hide the
copper substrate. Rather, the viewer's perception of thin, filmy
surfaces was a part of the desired result, and we can recognize the
copper sheet as their physical support rather than something meant
to be hidden or disguised. The fox heads -whose production is not
limited to the Piura Valley- juxtapose precious and base metal
surfaces to attain different ends. Perhaps they belong to a more
panMoche aesthetic. These speculations are just that, speculative;
investigations into the manufacture of other types of gilded and
silvered Moche metalwork from Loma Negra are on-going.
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1
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The Loma Negra Archive, also now in the Metropolitan Museum,
was assembled in the early 1970s by Anne Schaffer, under the
direction of Julie Jones, at that time curator of Pre-Columbian art
at the Meseunm of Primitive Art, New York.
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Because most of the copper sheet objects from Loma Negra have
not been cleaned, the original colors of their surfaces are
onscured by massive layers of copper corrosion and archaeological
accretions.
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For nose ornaments from La Mina
that juxtapose rows of gold and silver from top to bottom, see
Donnan, 1993a, figs. 127,130-131.
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Analyses of all precious metal
surface layers on the decapitator disk have not yet been
completed.
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EDS analyses were carried out at the Sherman Fair. child Center
for Objects Conservation using a Kevex model Delta IV
energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometer with a modified Amray model
1000 (1600T) scanning electron microscope opera. ting at a voltage
of 30 kV The data were quantified using MAGIC IV ZAF corrections
for standardless analysis and are reported in relative weight
percentages. Samples in the form of surface sera. pings and
polished sections were analyzed. Additional analysis were carried
out using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) in the
Department of Chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
by Adon A. Gordus. The objects were sampled using quartz rods; for
a description of the technique and operating conditions, see Gordus
& Shimada, 1995, p. 12. The data presented in figure 11
also includes two electron microprobe analyses carried out on Loma
Negra objects by Lechtman, et. al. (1982, p. 21). It is clear from
polished sections of Loma Negra gilded and silvered copper
artifacts (Lechtman, et- al., 1982; Centeno & Schorsch, in
this volume) that annealing was the final step in their
manufacture. One expects, therefore, to find a small amount of
copper in the precious metal layers, particularly at the interfaces
due to the interdiffusion between the substrate and the surface
layer during thermal treatment. However, the copper detected in
these analysis is due overwhelmingly to the proximity of the bulk
copper substrate and copper corrosion producís overlaying and
within the precious metallayers. For this reason, the percentages
of copper detected are not reported and the gold and silver values
have been normalized to total 100 %.
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I. e. see Drost &. HauBelt,
1992, fig. 1, for a ternary diagram plotting the colors of
gold-silvercopper alloys.
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The colors of gold-silvercopper
alloys shown by Drost &. HauBelt (1992, fig. 1) are
schematized; for an accurate assessment, replication samples are
necessary.
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On the Loma Negra metalwork virtually all dangles have not only
identical suspension wires, but identical means of suspension: each
dangle has a round hole near the top and is attached by means of a
flat wire strip threaded through two slots in the substrate. By
contrast, on the fox each dangle wire is threaded through a flat
wire loop with both ends inserted into a single round hole in the
chino This method of attachment appears typical in the rare cases
where dangles are suspended from the undersides of
three-dimensional forms. Here, as generally is the case on Moche
metalwork, the surface of the dangles matches that of the metal
from which they are suspended. Dangles were made of gold, silver
and gilded and silvered copper; dangles of silvered gold and plain
copper are unknown. The dangles suspended from the china on most
other Moche fox heads are not round.
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The metal sheet that forms the
inside of mouth of the large fox could not be observed under
magnification and has not yet been sampled for elemental
analysis.
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Like the example from Huaca de la
Luna, the Loma Negra small fox appears to have had only lower
teeth.
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