Accession Number

1982.001.0001

Alternate object names

Souvenir

Creation Date

17th century

Description

This 10 cm tall, “sponge-silver” cone recovered from the 1622 Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha is a bit of a mystery. It bears the cast letters MAR and IHS, acronyms for Mary and Jesus, suggesting a religious function. But other, similar cones from the Atocha have only repeating geometric designs. Another is cast with the letters POTOSY, tying it to the Andean mining town of Potosí. Interestingly, this piece and the others are all similar in shape to larger silver cones called “piñas,” which are also made of sponge-silver – the initial form of the metal after being recovered from ore in the colonial mining process. Silver was the major product of Potosí, and piñas would have been everywhere there. Potosí was also the source of most of Atocha’s silver. Were these smaller cones designed to mimic the larger Potosí piñas? Perhaps they are nothing more than stylized miniatures of the most important product of an influential mining town – and ones which just happened to make nice souvenirs.

Exhibition Label

Case Caption (2023):

SCIENCE OF SILVER

The Inca used barter instead of money and exacted taxes in the form of required periods of labor, known as the mita. In 1571, silver production was revolutionized by the introduction of amalgamation, a process by which crushed silver ore was mixed with mercury and then separated. This increased the efficiency of the mines by 500%.

Immediately, the Spanish needed more workers to complete the processing. They revived the mita, compelling Indigenous laborers to work in the mines. At Potosí, roughly 14,000 Indigenous men were required annually. An additional 3,500 men were sent to mine mercury at Huancavelica.

Both mining and amalgamation were extremely dangerous. Countless workers perished until this system ended in 1821.
Object Caption (2023):

Pinitas
Silver (c.1620)
Gifts of Rose Chibbaro, Jamestown, Inc., Don Kincaid, Museum Acquisition Fund
1982.001.0001, 1986.008.0138, 1986.008.0140, 1986.008.0151, 1986.008.0608, 1986.008.0730,1986.008.0878-0880, 1986.013.0004, 1987.013.0008

The purpose of these silver cones is not absolutely certain. They are made of very low-grade silver and the most likely explanation is that they were inexpensive souvenirs of the silver mines, made from run off from the purification process.