Extracting Copper from Sulphidic Ores: The Jicalán Viejo Smelting Site

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Technological Transitions in Prehispanic and Colonial Metallurgy: Recent and Ongoing Research at the Archaeological Site of Jicalán Viejo, in Central Michoacán, West Mexico" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Contrary to other Mesoamerican cultural and political entities, the Purépecha Empire is renowned for its remarkable development of metallurgical production. Ongoing research at the site of Jicalán Viejo involves the analysis of technical materials, including ore and fragments of furnace walls. This research has identified a multi-step process—each step rendering different types of slag—to reduce copper from sulphidic ores and to gradually reduce the metal from complex ores. While the reverse engineering to reconstruct the chaîne opératoire of the technological process is still at an early stage, one of those steps is visible in Jicalán rendered slag cakes, which bear numerous unreacted inclusions. This slag type is most commonly associated with copper or lead/silver smelting processes and has been found widely around the Mediterranean, the Alps, and north China. These different productions span a very long chronological range and an apparent long distance from one another, indicating that this is not a cultural practice but a technological one. Therefore, this paper intends to thoroughly document and characterize this slag type in Jicalán and compare it with similar by-products found elsewhere to approach this conspicuous type of slag.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Technological Transitions in Prehispanic and Colonial Metallurgy: Recent and Ongoing Research at the Archaeological Site of Jicalán Viejo, in Central Michoacán, West Mexico   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37070.0