Two Andean Bronze Arm Bands with Incised Lattice Borders

Pre-Columbian, South-Central Andes, Late Intermediate Period to Inca. Two arm bands, each hammered from a single sheet of bronze and curled into an open, slightly tapering cuff that would have fit around the upper arm or forearm. The wider band has a narrow incised border of cross-hatched lattice along both edges, like a woven selvage translated into metal. The second band is plainer and its matching borders are fainter, so the decoration is easier to feel than to see. Both have a warm brassy-gold surface with darker mottling and spots of green patina, and the hammer and planishing marks are still visible. Ornaments of this kind marked rank and identity in the Andes, where dress said a great deal about a person's place in the social order. These may have been worn as a pair or acquired separately. Andean metalworkers preferred to hammer and anneal sheet metal rather than cast it. Instead of pouring molten metal into molds, they beat ingots into thin, even sheets, softened them with heat, and then cut, raised, folded, and joined the sheets into ornaments. Arm bands like these show the method in its simplest form: one rectangle of sheet, trimmed slightly wider at one end, rolled into a cylinder, and finished with chased or incised decoration along the edges. The South-Central Andes, around the Lake Titicaca basin and extending into what are now southern Peru, highland Bolivia, northern Chile, and northwest Argentina, was one of the early centers of bronze-making in the Americas. Arsenical copper alloys were in use well before the period of these cuffs. Tin bronze, made with cassiterite from the Bolivian highlands, spread through the region in the centuries after about 1000 CE. Under the Inca, tin bronze became something close to a standard state alloy and was used for tools, weapons, and personal ornaments across the empire. Metal bands worn on the arms show up in Andean burials and in early colonial descriptions of native dress. In both, metal adornment followed rank: gold and silver were linked with the elite and with the sun and moon, while bronze and copper ornaments were worn more widely. The cross-hatched borders on these cuffs echo the geometric vocabulary of Andean textiles, which was the main visual language of the region. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 206418

Schätzpreis:268,60€

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