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A MAZAPA PHASE COPPER FIGURINE FROM ATETELCO, TEOTIHUACAN: DATA AND SPECULATIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2011

Dorothy Hosler  and
Ruben Cabrera
Dorothy Hosler*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 8-138, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Ruben Cabrera
Affiliation:
Proyecto Arqueológico Teotihuacán, San Juan Teotihuacán, Mexico
*
E-mail correspondence to: hosler@mit.edu
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Abstract

Excavations of the Mazapan phase at the Atetelco complex at Teotihuacan by Ruben Cabrera and colleagues produced a small human copper figurine. Studies of Mesoamerican metallurgy have indicated that metallurgy was introduced to western Mexico around a.d. 700 from Colombia, and Ecuador. This particular figurine is a remarkable find. The dates (a.d. 800–900) precede those of copper artifacts in the central Highlands. The manufacturing method (an open-backed casting) is rare in Mesoamerica but common in Colombia and Panama. Open-backed cast figurines that do appear in Mesoamerica come from the Cenote of Sacrifice, are made from copper-gold alloys, and were imported from lower Central America or Colombia. The Atetelco figurine is made from a copper-arsenic alloy. Copper-arsenic alloy objects are common in western Mexico (after a.d. 1150) and Ecuador and northern Peru (after about a.d. 300). The major question concerning the Atetelco figurine is whether it was fashioned in Ecuador or Colombia and imported, or whether it was produced in western Mexico. Our study of artifact chemistry, fabrication methods, and provenience indicate that the weight of the evidence points to western Mexico. We suggest that this fabrication technique (lost-wax castings of open-backed human figurines), while introduced from Colombia and lower Central America, never became a major component of the Mesoamerican metallurgical tradition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Fall 2010 , pp. 249 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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