Archaeologists have studied the colors in ancient Peruvian pottery. Field Museum reports.
The Huari Empire existed in the highlands and coastal areas of Peru from 600 to 1050 AD. “People sometimes think that the Incas were the first great empire in South America, but the Huari were the first,” says Luis Inonan, author of the new study. “Since they did not use writing, material culture like pottery would have been an important tool for communicating social and political messages. The visual impact of these objects will be very strong.” Even small details, such as the use of the right hue, showed the object’s importance and legitimacy as part of the empire.
American archaeologists have studied the chemical composition of the ink used by the ancient masters of the Andean regions they conquered and the Huari to paint ceramic pots. It turned out that they used a similar composition of black ink, containing manganese salts everywhere. This was typical for both ceramics made in the Huari style and pots with local decorative elements that were part of the culture of the Huari peoples conquered in the past. At the same time, before the conquest, most of these peoples used completely different black dyes, for example, based on a compound of iron and calcium.
Scholars believe that the Huari Empire established a kind of “quality control” for pottery produced in different regions, perhaps even providing the artisans with the “right” black pigment. “In general, black minerals are easy to extract in the valleys where the peoples we studied lived,” the scientists explain. “However, the ancient black minerals did not match the official Huari appearance, so artisans may have been provided with manganese minerals from the capital to achieve the desired black shade.”
At the same time, the shade has changed a little, but it can carry a great symbolic meaning. From this, scholars conclude that there was great centralization in this ancient empire.
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