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Blowpipes and their metalworking applications: New evidence from Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico

Author(s)
Meanwell, Jennifer L; Paris, Elizabeth H; Peraza Lope, Carlos; Seymour, Linda M; Masic, Admir
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Abstract
© 2020 Meanwell et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This study presents evidence of two tuyères, or blowpipe tips, used in metalworking at the Postclassic period city of Mayapán. Blowpipe technology has long been hypothesized to be the production technique for introducing oxygen to furnaces during the metal casting process on the basis of ethnohistorical depictions of the process in ancient Mesoamerica. To our knowledge, the tuyères recovered at Mayapán are the first archaeologically documented tuyères for pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. The dimensions, internal perforation, vitrification, and presence of copper prills within the ceramic fabric, suggest that they were used in pyrotechnological production, likely metalworking, and is consistent with previous evidence for small-scale metalworking at Mayapán. Blowpipe use in metallurgical production is a logical extension of a much longer tradition of blowgun use in hunting, which was likely already present in Mesoamerica by the time metal was introduced to West Mexico from South America. Furthermore, the dimensions of the Mayapán tuyères are consistent with the internal diameter of ethnohistorically-documented blowguns from Jacaltenango in the southwest Maya region. We conducted replication experiments that suggest that when combined with wooden blowpipes, the Mayapán tuyères would have been ideal for small-scale, furnace-based metallurgy, of the type identified at Mayapán from Postclassic period contexts.
Date issued
2020-08
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/133054
Department
Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Journal
PLoS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Citation
Meanwell JL, Paris EH, Peraza Lope C, Seymour LM, Masic A (2020) Blowpipes and their metalworking applications: New evidence from Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico. PLoS ONE 15(9): e0238885
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1932-6203

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