Pre-Columbian jewelry is the adornment made in the Americas before European contact in 1492. The cultures of Mexico, Central America and the Andes worked gold, silver, copper and their alloys, carved jade and shell, and set turquoise in mosaic. Much of what they made carried religious and political meaning, and most of the gold the Spanish found was melted down, so the pieces that survive come largely from burials and later excavations.
Metalworking in the Americas
Metalworking in the Americas began in the Andes, in what is now Peru, well over 3,000 years ago. Early goldsmiths hammered native gold into thin sheet. Over time Andean and Colombian metalworkers developed casting, soldering, alloying and gilding, and the techniques spread north through Central America to Mexico, where metalwork arrived relatively late, roughly in the last thousand years before the Spanish.
American goldsmiths valued gold mostly for its color and shine and its links to the sun and to divine power. It was not money in the European sense. That difference shocked both sides when the Spanish arrived.
Tumbaga and depletion gilding
Tumbaga is an alloy of gold and copper, often with some silver, used widely in Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica. It melts at a lower temperature than pure gold and is harder, which suits casting.
Goldsmiths used a process now called depletion gilding to give tumbaga a pure gold surface. They heated the piece so the copper at the surface oxidized, then removed the oxide with acidic plant juices or other agents. Repeated several times, this left a thin skin of nearly pure gold over a copper-rich body. The finished object looks like solid gold. The jewelry finishing and rose gold pages describe how copper behaves in gold alloys today.
Muisca gold
The Muisca lived on the high plateaus around present-day Bogota in Colombia. Their goldsmiths cast small flat figures called tunjos, made as religious gifts and left in lakes, caves and fields. They made them by lost-wax casting: a model in wax over a clay center, covered in clay, heated so the wax ran out, then filled with molten metal.
The Muisca Raft, found in a cave near Pasca in 1969, shows a chief on a raft surrounded by attendants. It is often linked to the ceremony at Lake Guatavita in which a new ruler, covered in gold dust, was said to float out on a raft and throw gold and emeralds into the water. That ceremony is the origin of the legend of El Dorado. The raft is in the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) in Bogota.
The Muisca also controlled the Colombian emerald deposits, including Chivor, and traded emeralds widely. Muzo was worked by the neighboring Muzo people.
Quimbaya gold
The Quimbaya style comes from the middle Cauca River valley in Colombia. Quimbaya goldsmiths made lime flasks (poporos), seated figures with calm faces, and jewelry of exceptional polish, much of it in tumbaga. The Quimbaya Treasure, a large group of pieces found in a tomb in the 1890s, was given by the Colombian government to Spain and is now in the Museo de America in Madrid.
Moche ornaments
The Moche culture flourished on the north coast of Peru during roughly the first eight centuries AD. Moche metalworkers combined gold, silver and copper, often in the same piece, and used gilding and inlay of turquoise, shell and other stones.
In 1987 archaeologists led by Walter Alva excavated the tomb of the Lord of Sipan, an unlooted Moche royal burial. It contained gold and silver necklaces of large peanut-shaped beads (half in gold, half in silver), earspools inlaid with turquoise mosaic showing warriors, nose ornaments and headdresses. The finds are displayed at the Royal Tombs of Sipan Museum in Lambayeque, Peru.
Earspools, large disks worn through stretched earlobes, were a mark of high status across the Andes. The Spanish called Inca nobles "orejones," big ears, for this reason.
The Inca
The Inca empire, which grew in the 15th century, gathered goldsmiths from conquered peoples, especially the Chimu of the north coast, and brought them to Cusco. The Coricancha temple in Cusco was said to have walls covered with gold sheet and a garden of life-size plants and animals in gold and silver. Almost all of it was melted down after the Spanish conquest, and the ransom of the Inca ruler Atahualpa was paid in gold and silver objects that were melted into bars.
Mixtec goldwork
In Mexico, the Mixtec people of Oaxaca were the finest goldsmiths of the late period before the Spanish. They cast very fine filigree-like work by lost-wax casting, making the wax model out of thin wax threads. Their pendants have tiny bells, movable parts and chains of linked plaques.
In 1932 the Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso found Tomb 7 at Monte Alban, a reused tomb containing Mixtec treasure: gold pectorals, necklaces, rings, earrings, carved bones and jewelry of pearl, jade, turquoise and rock crystal. The finds are in the museum in Oaxaca City. The Aztecs prized Mixtec metalwork and took it as tribute.
Aztec turquoise mosaics
The Aztecs (Mexica) of central Mexico prized turquoise, which they called xihuitl. Some of it may have come by trade from mines in what is now the American Southwest, such as Cerrillos in New Mexico, and recent studies point to sources within Mexico as well. See the turquoise profile for those sources.
Aztec and Mixtec artisans cut turquoise into tiny tiles and glued them with resin onto wood, shell or bone, sometimes adding shell, jet, malachite and pyrite. The British Museum holds several of these mosaics, including a double-headed serpent pectoral and a mask on a human skull. Aztec rulers wore turquoise ear ornaments and nose rings, and turquoise was linked with the fire god and with royal rank.
Maya jade
For the Maya of southern Mexico and Central America, jade was the most precious material, far more than gold. Mesoamerican jade is jadeite, and its only known source in the region is the Motagua River valley in Guatemala. Our jade profile explains how jadeite differs from nephrite.
Maya nobles wore jade earflares, beaded collars, pectorals, belt plaques and wrist cuffs. The green color stood for maize, water and life. Kings were buried with jade masks: the tomb of Pakal at Palenque, opened in 1952, held a mask made of jade mosaic pieces with shell and obsidian eyes. Maya dentists even drilled small jade disks into the front teeth of some nobles.
The Olmec, earlier still, carved blue-green jadeite into figures, masks and celts, and later Mesoamericans collected and reused Olmec pieces.
What survived
Spanish conquerors shipped huge quantities of American gold and silver to Europe, and most worked objects were melted into bars. Our picture of pre-Columbian jewelry comes mostly from intact tombs, sacred deposits in lakes and caves, and objects that reached Europe as curiosities. Looting of sites remains a problem, and many countries strictly limit the export of archaeological material. For how this tradition fits with the wider story, see the jewelry history overview.
Frequently asked questions
What is tumbaga?
Tumbaga is an alloy of gold and copper, often with silver, used by goldsmiths in Colombia and Central America. Depletion gilding gave tumbaga objects a pure gold surface.
Where did Maya jade come from?
Maya jade is jadeite from the Motagua River valley in Guatemala, the only known jadeite source in Mesoamerica.
What is the legend of El Dorado based on?
The legend grew from accounts of a Muisca ceremony at Lake Guatavita in Colombia, where a new ruler covered in gold dust was said to throw gold and emeralds into the lake.
Why is so little Aztec and Inca gold left?
Spanish conquerors melted most of the gold and silver objects they seized into bars for shipment to Spain. Surviving pieces come mainly from tombs and caches found later.