Title:
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The Goldsmith's workshop : a study of metallurgy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Colombia
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This research investigates metallurgy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
in Colombia. Drawing on theories from Material Culture Studies, Landscape
Archaeology and the Anthropology of the Senses, and adopting a multidisciplinary
approach that includes archaeological evidence, documentary sources and
ethnographic interviews, this study aims at documenting and analysing what
happened to metallurgy after the encounter.
The study focuses on the town of Mompox, a World Heritage Site, in the
Momposino Depression in northern Colombia. Here, a long-lasting metalwork
tradition survives not only in the memories of the oldest goldsmiths but also in
delicate silver filigree work. The study focuses on the relationships that emerged
between things and people within different landscapes and in light of this it offers an
alternative perspective to examine processes of change and transformation,
movement, continuity, resistance, techniques, and experiences. This thesis argues
that the entangled relationship among individuals, objects and landscapes brought
important tensions and sensorial experiences into play, which in turn altered, resignified,
modelled and influenced the metallurgical activity.
This research is the first attempt at studying metalwork during the early
colonial period in Colombia from a multidisciplinary perspective. It discusses the
material record left by metalwork in the past that was recovered during excavations
in Mompox. Archaeometallurgical analysis' results contribute to the discussion. From
a historical point of view, primary sources, chronicles of Indies and official reports
shed light on goldsmithing activity, the characteristics of workshops, and the social,
economic and political circumstances of metalwork activity within this time frame.
Finally, from an anthropological perspective, interviews with older goldsmiths in
Mompox provide an ethnographic dimension to help understand present-day
metalwork and to search for traces of the material culture remains.
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