UC Berkeley

This project is the first to reconcile metals recovered from the Cenote Sagrado at Chichén Itzá, Mexico from three museums in the US and Mexico in which Cenote objects are held. 148 of these metals were characterized through archaeometric studies. Through non-invasive and nondestructive analyses, this project involved the documentation of individual metals, including bells, sandals, and figurines, searched for patterning across the assemblage to identify distinct technological styles, and then compared data to published literature to determine the

metallurgical communities in Mesoamerica and Lower Central America indexed by these styles. After performing a visual inspection of each object with a magnifying glass and recording measurements with calipers, optical microscopy with visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light was then employed to comprehensively document object surfaces. Bulk compositions were evaluated with portable-Energy-Dispersive-X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometry. After carrying out these analyses in museum storerooms, with the permission of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology

and Ethnology, 15 objects were brought to laboratories in New York for finer-resolution studies, including synchrotron-based X-Ray Diffraction and Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy, which permitted the evaluation of artificial enrichments on the metals.

The assemblage consists of copper-based objects, including bronzes of arsenic and/or tin as well

as brass, and tumbaga, a metal containing gold, silver, and copper. Many show post-fabrication alteration, including indentation, tearing, and wrinkling, practices that may have taken place in ritualized deposition. Two zoomorphic bells were hammered to shape after their lost-wax

casting. Two sandals were artificially enriched in silver and gold through electrochemical replacement gilding. Reconciliation of the data with pre-existing literature reveals the contributions of metallurgists in Guerrero and Michoacán (axe-monies), the Tarascan state (tweezers), Veraguas/Chiriquí (anthropomorphic figurines), and Gran Coclé (rolled tubes) to the Cenote deposit. The documentation of sandals in 16th-century literature and the presence of brass suggest that the deposition was developed through connections to the Mexica tributary system

and through the working of metal imported from Europe, thus, centuries after the main occupation of Chichén (8th-11th century AD). Experimental lost-wax casting and hammering has allowed for exploration of metallurgy as a performative and fully embodied practice and to recognize that the individuals who altered the objects after their fabrication were themselves

metallurgists, enacting technical knowledge.