Tupu (pin)

This object is a tupu (also written as "topu" or "topo"), a Quechua term for a metal pin that women in the Andes use to fasten garments. Tupus have a basic form that consists of a head and stem. There is often wide variation in the head design and decoration. In this case, the head is comprised of a circular shape from which emerge two spirals at top. The spirals are rectangular in cross section and narrow at their ends to a slight point. The overall design of the head is similar to that of Metropolitan Museum of Art 64.228.701. In the latter case, however, a greater length of metal contributes to the spirals at top, and the spirals are more tightly spaced. Furthermore, the latter is significantly larger in total length and width, and there is a perforation in its head. Such a perforation may have been used for threading the tupu onto a cord connecting it with other ornaments, including another tupu (Angélica Casas of Tupe, Peru wears tupus in this way in Vetter 2009, fig. 6). Some investigators (e.g., Gibaja et al. 2014) have identified the motifs that appear on both of these tupus as floral. Other people associate this form of tupu with butterflies, especially nocturnal butterflies (thaparanku in Quechua) (Fernández 2015, 35; Vargas-Musquipa 1995). The spirals are suggestive of antennae. On this tupu, unlike 64.228.701, there are two small areas of raised relief on the head. These are located along the head’s central horizontal axis. To extend the possibility that this tupu creates the appearance of a butterfly, these two areas of relief may serve as the butterfly’s eyes. The stem of the present example is circular in cross section and narrows farther from the head before ending in a point.

To fabricate this tupu, metalworkers likely started with a rod of metal that had been cast or worked to shape. Copper is a component of this metal given the green color of the natural corrosion across the object’s surface. The copper may be alloyed with another metal, especially if the rod was cast; copper alone is not conducive to casting. The metalworkers may have hammered the end of this rod in order to thin and widen the metal, forming the tupu’s head. Chiseling the metal, they created the two extensions that now comprise the spirals. They gradually bent these extensions through repeated hammering, leading to the formation of the spirals. Annealing may have been carried out in between hammering sequences to soften the metal and facilitate continued working (please see further information in note [1]). After finishing the main design of the head, the metalworkers lightly hammered it from the reverse to create two shallow depressions that form the relief. Finally, they may have sharpened the end of the tupu’s stem through further hammering. Across a sample of 846 tupus dated to the Late Horizon (ca. A.D. 1400–1533), Owen (2012) identified 87 tupus that show clear use as cutting tools and 19 that appear to have been sharpened in some way.



Though geographic or cultural affiliation is unknown for this tupu, archaeological examples offer some comparison. Four tupus with a similar head design have been recovered from an Inca context at the site of Choquepujio in the Cusco Valley of Peru (Gibaja et al. 2014, fig. 40). These four tupus are around 15 cm in length, but their heads and spirals are more substantial than those of the present example, and more akin to those of 64.228.701. The tupus at Choquepujio were deposited as part of the Inca ritualized performance of capac hucha (for more information, please see the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History essay: Capac Hucha as an Inca Assemblage). They were associated with the burial of a five-year-old child, thought to be female.[2] This context also included two additional tupus with plain, circular heads, a folded cloth to which 66 circular metal sheet objects had been sewn, and two separate Spondylus spp. valves. The six tupus were found in the area of the person’s chest. This context may suggest that the child wore the tupus; however, the number would be quite high for one person. Historical, ethnographic, and archaeological sources suggest that one person typically wears between one and three tupus in order to fasten garments (Guamán Poma de Ayala [1615] 1980, pl. 120; Rowe 1998; Uceda et al. 2016, 240).

There are several tupus in the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore (MUSEF) in La Paz, Bolivia likely produced during the Inca Empire that show design parallels to the present example. They are made primarily of gold or silver (see Fernández 2015). Some (nos. 27259 and 27260), reported to have been recovered from or acquired in La Paz, are primarily gold and show a large circular head with two especially small spirals at top. Another (no. 10091), made of silver, shows a small circular head from which emerge two spirals. Among the examples in MUSEF and from Choquepujio, this Inca tupu (no. 10091) is the most similar in form to the present example. Two differences are that the silver tupu shows a perforation in its head, and the spirals in the area closest to the head are much wider than those of the example in the Metropolitan. Furthermore, the silver example is significantly shorter: 8.6 cm in length. It is clear, then, that metalworkers could produce a substantial amount of variation out of one basic form.

Although this form is associated with a particular Inca context (Choquepujio) and there are Inca tupus with design parallels, it is important to recognize that certain forms endure over time. This form may have been created well before the emergence of the Inca Empire. Indeed, while some examples of this form have been recovered from the Inca "core region" radiating around Cusco, others have been found in northern and central highland Peru, the southern Titicaca region, and northwestern Argentina (Owen 2012, fig. 2.7a). Fernández (2015, 35) confirms that "butterfly tupus" ("topos de mariposa") of an unknown quantity have been recovered from Cusco. Besides the four at Choquepujio, the examples referenced in Owen (2012, fig. 2.7a) only amount to nine, and some are distinct from the present example in showing a slight step just below the head of the tupu.

Based on the geographic distribution of similar tupus, the present example may have been fabricated and used within the Inca Empire in the areas of present-day Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, or Chile. The chronology assigned to this tupu relates to the Late Horizon, when the Inca Empire underwent substantial expansion. The earliest examples of tupus known to archaeologists are from the cemetery at Tablada de Lurín, dated to the end of the Early Horizon and the beginning of the Early Intermediate Period (ca. 300 B.C.–A.D. 300) on the Central Coast of Peru (Cárdenas 1999, 173; Castro de la Mata 2007). People continued to use tupus with the form of some the earliest examples after the Spanish invasion (see Lechtman 2003, fig. 17.49 for an example from Lukurmata and Rice 2013 for examples from Torata Alta). New forms were created during Spanish colonization, including a form that has the basic shape of a spoon. Esteras (in Fernández 2015, 95) has suggested that women created this form to disguise the tupu as a household object while confronted with the efforts of Spanish colonists to remove examples of Indigenous symbols. (For further information on such tupus [or ttipquis, usually a smaller version of the tupu] made during the Spanish Colonial period, please see Metropolitan Museum of Art 1982.420.10, 1982.420.12, 1982.420.13.)

Bryan Cockrell, Curatorial Fellow, Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, 2017

Related objects: 64.228.701, 64.228.702, 64.228.703, 1984.420.10, 1987.394.620

[1] In annealing, a metalworker applies heat to the metal in order to reduce the stress that has accumulated in it, thereby making it more conducive for working. Depending on the temperature of the heat applied, the metal may undergo recrystallization in which new metal grains are created in the place of older ones, further enhancing working properties.

[2] The archaeologists note that this determination of sex and/or gender is based on an analysis of the preserved teeth and on artifacts in the burial. It may be that they considered the presence of tupus, an object typically associated with Andean women (Gero 2001), to establish the sex or gender of this person, but this is uncertain. Please see Andrushko et al. 2006 for possible alternatives to this assumed association.

Further reading

Andrushko, Valerie A., Elva C. Torres Pino and Viviana Bellifemine. "The Burials at Sacsahuaman and Chokepukio: A Bioarchaeological Case Study of Imperialism from the Capital of the Inca Empire." Ñawpa Pacha 28 (2006): 63–92.

Cárdenas Martin, Mercedes. Tablada de Lurín: Excavaciones 1958–1959: Patrones funerarios: Tomo 1. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Instituto Riva Agüero, Dirección Académica de Investigación, 1999.

Castro de la Mata Guerra García, Pamela. "Tecnologías de cobre dorado y evidencias de reutilización de piezas de metal en el cementerio prehispánico de Tablada de Lurín, Lima – Perú." In Metalurgia en la América antigua: Teoría, arqueología, simbología y tecnología de los metales prehispánicos, edited by Roberto Lleras Pérez, 481–500. Bogotá: Fundación de Investigaciones Arqueológicas Nacionales, Banco de la República, 2007.


Fernández Murillo, María Soledad. Prendedores, topos y mujeres. La Paz: Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, Fundación Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia, 2015.


Gero, Joan M. "Field Knots and Ceramic Beaus: Interpreting Gender in the Peruvian Early Intermediate Period." In Gender in Pre-Hispanic America: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 12 and 13 October 1996, edited by Cecelia F. Klein, 15–55. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2001.

Gibaja Oviedo, Arminda M., Gordon F. McEwan, Melissa Chatfield, and Valerie Andrushko. "Informe de las posibles capacochas del asentamiento arqueológico de Choquepujio, Cusco, Perú." Ñawpa Pacha 34 (2014): 147–75.

Guamán Poma de Ayala, Felipe. El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, edited by John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, [1615] 1980.


Lechtman, Heather. "Tiwanaku Period (Middle Horizon) Bronze Metallurgy in the Lake Titicaca Basin: A Preliminary Assessment." In Tiwanaku and Its Hinterland: Archaeology and Paleoecology of an Andean Civilization, edited by Alan L. Kolata, 404–34. Vol. 2. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003.


Owen, Bruce D. "The Meanings of Metals: The Inca and Regional Contexts of Quotidian Metals from Machu Picchu." In The 1912 Yale Peruvian Scientific Expedition Collections from Machu Picchu: Metal Artifacts, edited by Richard L. Burger and Lucy C. Salazar, 73–189. New Haven: Yale University Department of Anthropology and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2012.


Rice, Prudence M. Space-Time Perspectives on Early Colonial Moquegua. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2013.


Rowe, Ann Pollard, ed. Costume and Identity in Highland Ecuador. Washington, D.C.: The Textile Museum, 1998.


Uceda Castillo, Santiago, Ricardo Morales Gamarra, and Elías Mujica Barreda. Huaca de la Luna: Templos y dioses moches. Lima: Fundación Backus and World Monuments Fund, 2016.

Vargas-Musquipa, Willy F. "Insectos en la iconografía inka." Revista Peruana de Entomología 37 (1995): 23–29.

Vetter Parodi, Luisa. "El uso del tupu en un pueblo llamado Tupe." In Platería tradicional del Perú: Usos domésticos, festivos y rituales: Siglos XVIII–XX, 175–83. Lima: Universidad de Ricardo Palma, Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano, 2009.