Color Me Red: A Preliminary Examination of Pigments in the Moquegua Valley, Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This preliminary study explores how pigments were sourced and manufactured in the Moquegua valley of southern Peru. The ethnohistoric and archaeological records provide ample evidence of the economic, religious, and social significance of colors and pigments in the pre-Columbian Andean world; however, there currently exists little work dedicated to how these goods were sourced and combined to make a breadth of expressible colors. This research combines what we know from the ethnohistoric record with tests done using portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) focused on chemically profiling raw, processed, and artifact-associated pigments. Analyzing pigments as both a material for utilitarian production as well as an independently valued cultural resource is intended to highlight how this type of good was imbued with cultural meaning.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25703