This semester in the 3.094 Materials in Human Experience course Professor Heather Lechtman and Professor Dorothy Hosler explored the development of metallurgy in the ancient Americas. The course’s second module foucsed on Mesoamerica in particular the Aztec empire. Emphasis was placed on the properties of metal that were sacred to the Aztec—sound and color—and on the metallurgical processes by which those properties were achieved.
Students chose a plant or animal native to Mesoamerica and were challenged to cast that real-life floral or faunal entity in metal, using a lost wax process similar to Aztec practice. Preparation of the wax models, the ceramic molds, and the tin bronze castings (Cu, 10 wt% Sn) took place in the DMSE foundry with lab instruction led by Mike Tarkanian, Tara Fadenrecht, and James Hunter.
An exhibit on display in the Infinite Corridor near Building 4 features student lost wax castings of many life forms that likely inhabited the sacred garden of the Aztec.
Image above: Sloth by Daniel Schuman