[Aztlan] OLDEST GOLD JEWELRY EVER FOUND IN THE AMERICAS FOUND; IN PERU

[Dacus, Chelsea]

In response to Mr. van Oorschot,

The beads could be real turquoise, though I don't think that can be determined for certain without chemical testing.  Small amounts of turquoise appear in the jewelry of almost all Andean cultures through time and some of these have been chemically tested.  The chemical signature of turquoise is site specific so you can tell if turquoise comes from one area or another.  Much of the turquoise found in the ancient cultures of northern Peru has a chemical signature that does not coincide with known sources of turquoise in the Americas, leading scholars to believe that there was a mine which has since been exhausted or lost, the possibility of which is evidenced by the recent discovery of the iron mine from which the Nasca got their pigments for their ceramics.  It is a good example of a lost, now found, mine in use in ancient America.  For more info see Hans Ruppert, "Zur Verbreitung und Herkunft von Türkis und Sodalith in Präkolumbischen Kulturen der Kordilleren," Baessler-Archiv Beitrage zur Volkerkunde 30 (1982).  Ruppert also asserts that much of the "lapis lazuli" found in the art of Ancient America is actually sodalite and not lapis.

Trading routes were apparently extensive, but debate remains over how much so.  For one example of an object widely traded along the Pacific coast of the Americas, though, you can look at studies done on the shells of spondylus princeps whose source in the Americas is the coast of Ecuador, but which is found in several areas throughout South, Meso and North America.

Cheers,
Chelsea

Chelsea Dacus
Curatorial Assistant
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston


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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 11:28:40 +0200 (CEST)
From: Lennert van Oorschot <lenschot at yahoo.fr>
Subject: [Aztlan] RE : Aztlan Digest, Vol 29, Issue 2
To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Message-ID: <465865.83514.qm at web26708.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Hi all,
   
  About the 2155-1936 BCE gold and turquoise. This seems to be a "Western discussion" again, if I may say so. Looking at the gold... and NOT at the turquoise...
   
  Pure gold is to be found in Bolivia and Peru, but turquoise isn't. That's one reason why I find the turquoise much more interesting than the gold. According to http://www.mindat.org/index.php ("the largest mineral database and mineralogical reference website on the internet") the only turquoise mine in the region is the Chilean Chuquicamata mine (Antofagasta region). Chalcosiderite (closely related to turquoise) however is present in Bolivia. 
   
  My question would be: is this turquoise, really turquoise (or some other greenstone)?
   
  But it is even more interesting if we look at other archaeological findings. For example the well known Mochica items of turquoise and Lapis Lazuli. Again, these materials could only have come from Chile because that's the only place in South America (apart from Brasil) were these minerals are to be found. 
   
  A few years ago a news item about an archaeological site in southern Ecuador reached the public (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-05/idrp-hsa051204.php). It appears that these people living here (the site is about 4000 years old according to the investigators) also got their hands on the turquoise mineral. Again: did it come from Chile? Is it really turquoise or another greenstone?
   
  We all know of the turquoise route from the American Southwest to Mexico. It seems however that there is a (much older) (but how old?) Southamerican equivalent of this. And this again brings me at the Andean-Mexico contacts... The first turquoise in Mexico appears in Oaxaca, Guerrero, Jalisco, etc (Weigand, Mountjoy, and others), centuries before the people in Arizona/New Mexico started mining. 
   
  Does this mean (see Marcos) that South Americans brought the first turquoise to Mexico and that Mesoamericans later found mines closer to home?
   
  What do you all think of this?
   
  Does anyone know if the reported turquoises really are turquoise and not some other (local)greenstone? If they're all indeed real turquoises, is there another option besides the "introduction from far away"-one?
   
  Please let me know!
   
  best greetings,
   
   
  Lennert van Oorschot