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Archaeological sites have
yielded a rich haul to treasure hunters, who wash and sieve the earth in
search of little studs, nose rings, and tiny gold ornaments which are
the stock in trade of the Tumaco jeweler.
The Art of the Goldsmith
The goldsmiths of Dabeiba, Guatavita, and other goldworking centers were
masters of a subtle and demanding art, and their products were in no way
primitive. Though the Spaniards ignored artistic quality, preferring
their gold in ingot form, the occasional piece sent back to Europe, was
marveled at by goldsmiths and artists for its aesthetic and technical
qualities. As Albrecht Durer, one of Europe's greatest artists, wrote in
1520, after his first glimpse of native American goldwork: "I never in
all my days saw anything that so delighted my heart as these things. For
I saw amazing objects, and I marveled at the subtle ingenuity of the men
in these distant lands." And Benvenuto Cellini, when shown a piece of
gold from Mexico, attempted to copy it and found he couldn't.
Within the Americas, the knowledge of metal technology spread from south
to north. The first use of beaten gold is dated about 2000 B.C. at the
site of Waywaka in the Andes of southern Peru, after which there was a
long period of purely local Peruvian development, with new techniques
introduced into the repertoire from time to time. By contrast,
metallurgy did not reach Mexico until some time between A.D. 700 and
900, and it arrived fully developed, without any preceding stage of
experimentation.
Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica can be regarded as a single
metallurgical province, characterized by a preference for gold copper
alloys, lost wax casting, depletion gilding, and false filigree. Within
this area, gold objects were traded in both directions. Tairona, Sinu,
and Quimbaya pieces have been found in tombs as far north as Panama and
Costa Rica and were
imitated locally; Colombian emeralds were incorporated in Panamanian
gold jewelry at Coclé; and Panamanian frog pendants have been found as
far south as Armenia in the Quimbaya region of Colombia.
In spite of the vast number of extant specimens, the classification and
dating of Colombian goldwork still offer problems, though there are
certain definite criteria. The presence of European trade goods (for
example, iron tools and glass beads) in the same tombs as the gold is
proof that certain styles were current when the Spaniards arrived. These
styles can be placed
within a late period. Some metalwork, clearly older, like the finest
Quimbaya pieces, belongs to a middle period of development, dated around
the fifth to ninth centuries A.D. Metalwork of the early period, around
the time of Christ, is represented by objects in the Early Calima style.
Few of these objects were excavated by trained archaeologists, and most
of the museum pieces were obtained from collectors or treasure hunters
who had little interest in the context of their finds. Except in rare
instances, they did not record which items were found together in the
same tomb, did not save the pottery (which is often our best guide for
dating), and did not collect such "valueless" materials as charcoal,
which, since the 1950s, has been used to provide radiocarbon dates for
archaeological sites.
Other problems derive from the nature of the gold objects themselves.
Being small, portable, and valuable, they were traded over long
distances; in addition, the goldsmiths themselves were mobile, working
in areas away from their homelands. As a consequence, provenance alone
is not a reliable basis for classification. Pieces made in one part of
Colombia turned up in another, were copied by local goldsmiths, and
provided the stimulus for new, hybrid versions of the local forms.
Most of the gold used
by the Indians was obtained from placer mines in the rivers of the
western and central Cordilleras, employing only the simplest equipment:
fire hardened digging sticks to break up the earth, and shallow wooden
trays (bateas) in which to cant' and wash it.
They take the earth, little by little, from the mine to the washing
place, and there they clean it with water to see if there is gold in the
bateas . . . And to wash this earth and work the mine, they do thus:
they put certain Indians inside the mine to dig out the earth . . . and
with this excavated earth they fill up bateas, which other Indians carry
to the water, in which are those who do the panning, both men and women.
The carriers empty their bateas into other, larger ones which those who
are washing have in their hands. And the porters return for more earth
while the washers pan what has already been brought . . .
It is worth noting that each pair of Indians who wash must be served by
two persons to bring the earth, and two more who excavate it and break
it up to fill the carrying trays. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, 1535 48
Oviedo also notes that
streams were sometimes diverted to expose the gold bearing gravels of
their beds. Using similar methods in the last century, it took only six
to eight minutes to process a twenty pound load of gravel.
In pre Hispanic times, as at present, small scale mining may have been a
part time occupation, carried out during the dry season when stream beds
were exposed. Some localities, however, supported specialist communities
of full time miners and smiths. The most renowned site of this kind was
Buritica, in the mountains of northern Antioquia.
Buritica was a true industrial center, exploiting both alluvial and vein
gold, and exchanging the surplus for food and other necessities. It was
a town of big houses, set close together on a fortified hilltop, and it
seems to have been the capital of an area containing several other
mining and metal processing communities.
At Buritica itself, and in the surrounding villages, the Conquistadors
found workshops for melting down the metal, with crucibles, braziers,
and balances to weigh out the gold. The general impression is that
Buritica exported both finished items and raw metal to be worked up
elsewhere. Some gold and jewelry was exported to the Quimbaya and Muisca
peoples but most of it was traded northward to Dabeiba, where a
community of specialist goldsmiths grew up on the basis of imported raw
material.
Since Colombia lacks tin, it was unable to develop a native tradition of
bronze working. Instead, the favorite material was tumbaga (a gold
copper alloy with some accidental silver). Tumbaga offers several
technical advantages. It is easier to cast than any of its constituent
metals alone, and it reproduces fine decorative detail more accurately.
The melting point is lower than that of pure gold, and the alloy harder
than its individual constituents.
In the Archive of the Indies in Seville is a document, dated 1555, which
describes how the Indians of Tamalameque, in lowland Colombia, melted
their gold: "And then the said chief and Indians burned a little charcoal
on some baked clay with three cane blowpipes, and placed a crucible on
this with a piece of caricoli . . . along with small quantities of low
grade gold . . . After it had melted, they took the crucible and poured
a little water over it. on Tamalameque"; from Archivo General de Indus,
Seville, I 555
Hammering was used to stretch and planish the flat parts of certain cast
pieces, to make simple disks, plaques, or nose ornaments, and as a
technique for producing sheet metal.
Spanish chronicles describe the use of hammers and cylindrical anvils
made of hard, fine grained stone. These harmer stones were not hafted,
but were held in the hand, and the metal was worked by alternate
hammering and annealing into a thin and even sheet.
Annealing was an essential part of the process. Pure gold is soft anti
fairly easy to beat, but under continual hammering many of the alloys
become strain hardened and difficult to work, finally turning brittle
and cracking. Malleability can be restored by annealing replacing the
object in the furnace until the metal glows red, followed by quenching
in water. After this, the metal can be hammered once more.
The techniques used to manufacture the objects themselves were
relatively simple. An outline drawing was scribed on the sheet
(sometimes with the aid of a template), and tool marks show that a
narrow bladed chisel was used to cut out the shape. For decorative
effect, but also to give strength and rigidity to large objects of
flimsy sheet, the metal smiths pressed out repousse designs, working from
the back, with the object resting on a bed of some yielding material.
These repousse designs were improved by working on the front of the
piece, using a chasing tool to deepen the designs and to sharpen their
edges. Additional freehand patterns were sometimes traced directly onto
the metal. Raised designs were made by pressing and hammering the sheet
metal over carved patterns, and the same technique was used to mass
produce sets of identical pieces, such as necklace pendants.
When many tiny elements are
to be joined to each other or to a back plate, ordinary soldering
becomes impractical. Copper-gold-silver alloys can be diffusion-welded
by the application of heat, but the jewelers of Colombia and Ecuador
also used an alternative method, called granulation, which is the one
employed in the ancient civilizations of the Old World, and described by
Pliny - though not rediscovered in Europe until some fifty years ago.
A copper compound, such as copper hydroxide or acetate, is mixed with an
organic glue, and the mature is used to stick the delicate gold elements
into place. Once assembled, the object is heated in the reducing (oxygen
free) atmosphere of a charcoal fire until the glue burns away and a
natural gold copper brazing alloy forms.
Complicated shapes, both hollow and solid, were normally made by the
lost wax (or cire perdue) method, in which the goldsmith modeled the
object in wax and then encased it in clay, leaving a channel to the
exterior. On heating, the melted wax was poured out, and molten metal
was poured in to replace it, leaving an exact metal copy of the wax
original.
The manufacture of hollow pieces required an interior core of clay mixed
with powdered charcoal, carved to the shape of the finished product. The
goldsmith next rolled out molten beeswax into a thin sheet, which, laid
over the core and pressed against it, followed the shape exactly. At
this stage, the pouring channel and air vents were added in the form of
wax rods.
The object, assembled with peg like supports (chaplets) of green wood,
was now heated in order to melt out the wax and to leave a space between
the interior core and the outer casing. While the mold was still hot (so
that the metal would not set before flowing to all parts of the cast),
molten gold was poured in to take the place of the wax. After cooling,
the outer casing was broken open to extract the metal casting, and the
interior core material was removed. Because the outer casing has to be
broken each time, every lost wax casting is a unique creation.
To produce a gold finish on a tumbaga item, the alloy was treated
chemically with an acid substance made from corrosive minerals or from
the juice of certain plants, which removed the base metals at the
surface, but left the gold untouched.
. . . they know very well
how to gild the objects and items they make from copper and low grade
gold. And they have such ability and excellence in this, and give such a
high luster to what they gild, that it looks like good gold of 23 carats
or more .... They do this with a certain herb, and it is such a great
secret that any goldsmith in Europe, or in any other part of
Christendom, would soon become a rich man from this manner of gilding .
. . I have seen the herb, and Indians have taught me about it, but I was
never able, by flattery or in any other way, to get the secret from
them. Gonzalo Fernandez Oviedo, 1535 48
The Indian artisans did not simply produce works of gold for admiration.
Their objects served a purpose, sometimes religious, sometimes secular.
They manufactured tools from gold and its alloys spatulas, chisels,
tees, needles. Chiefs used bowls and spoons, hammered from gold. The
Indians even formed fishhooks out of the precious metal.
The human faces and animal figures used in body ornaments and on staff
heads and musical instruments were often distorted into stylized forms.
The inspired symbolism of many of these creations, whether based on
myths or influenced by drugs, reflects the lives and beliefs of the pre
Hispanic tribes of gold rich Colombia. We can appreciate the beauty of
this tribal art even though we can never completely understand what it
meant to those who made it.
Geography and diversity saved some of the Indians' heritage from the
Spaniards. When they could, the native Americans kept their gold, which
was buried in hidden tombs. Centuries later, the guaqueros (tomb
robbers) found these golden treasures of lost cultures. The plundering
is now illegal, but still many of these pieces find their way from the
robbers' hands to the
museums of the world, and in particular to the Gold Museum of Colombia
in Bogota, the showplace of twenty five thousand pieces of pre Colombian
goldwork.
This, then, is their heritage the gold of El Dorado, the gold that
eluded the Spaniards. |
