Moche+Metal+Technology

=Moche Metal Tech=

The Moche Culture had great skills in metalworking. Their sophisticated metallurgy technologies produced some of the greatest metal artifacts found in the ancient Americas (Schorsch 1998). Moche metal artifacts are also "some of the earliest examples in the New-World". (Friedman 1972). The Andes are very rich in metal deposites and the Moche exploited this resource. Raw copper was widely used because of its abundance, and smelting was not always necessary (Friedman 1972). Silver and gold were also abundant in Moche territory. Moche Tombs at Loma Negra illustrate the importance of metal in the Moche Culture (Schorsch 1998). Several large tombs have been either unearthed by archaeologists or looted by robers. These tombs contain large amount of metal objects, contrary to other, non-Moche tombs that contain mainly textiles and ceramics (Schorsch 1998). Most of the metal found there comes form sheet metal made from alloys of gold, copper, and silver (Schorsch 1998). This metal was mined, combined into an alloy, smelted and hammered into sheets. The metals could be hammered into molds and decorated. Mechanical joins were used to attach different metal pieces together (Schorsch 1998). This is a sophisticated technique that shows the skills of the metalworkers. Moche also soldered pieces together (Schorsch 1998). One of the most fascinating and sophisticated technologies the Moche used was their ability to gilt copper objects with gold and siver. "Metallurgical studies of a group of gilt copper form Loma Negra have shown that the gilding was achieved by an electrochemical replacement plating process in which gold and silver are dissolved in an aqueous solution of corrosive minerals. The precious metals are then plated from the solution onto the copper objects" (Lechtman 1982). This process is known as depletion gilding and electrochemical replacement plating. Gilding gives the more abundant copper an extremely thin coat golden or silver which give it the appearance of being solid gold or silver. This saves the amount of rear gold and silver metals to work with. Moche metal technology allowed the culture to produce some spectacular metal art.