Bell

Metalworkers in West Mexico or in the Valley of Mexico fabricated this pear-shaped bell between the 11th and 16th centuries. It is likely made of a copper alloy—that is, copper chemically mixed with another element—based on the analysis of similar bells (Hosler 2014; Schulze 2008). The bell was made by lost-wax casting, and most of it shows a cast filigree design. It features six motifs that could be interpreted as lightning rods or snakes.


At top, the bell includes a circular loop that would have allowed it to be worn or suspended. The majority of the bell is constituted by a resonator, an open chamber that at one time may have contained a free-floating clapper made of metal, stone, or ceramic, but which has not preserved. The clapper would have helped produce sound by hitting the resonator’s walls. Of course, the bell is also capable of making sound by striking other bells or objects. Approximately two-thirds of the resonator has a ridged appearance, while the lower third is relatively plain. There are a few important design motifs. First, there are four curved, zigzag motifs evenly spaced and oriented vertically around the bell on the ridged part of the resonator. There is a similar curved, zigzag motif, oriented horizontally, on either face of the resonator’s plain lower third. A plain, horizontal band of metal divides the ridged part from the plain part on the obverse and reverse. Finally, the outer edges of the resonator’s opening also show plain bands of metal.


The entire bell was originally designed in wax likely over a ceramic core. (For more on lost-wax casting, please see Metropolitan Museum of Art 2008.569.13a, b.) The artists designed the upper two-thirds of the resonator by carefully joining around 30 circular threads of wax, wrapping them around the core. The joins could be made by applying light pressure to the connecting areas. The overall appearance is wirework, or filigree, but this effect was actually achieved in shaping wax and then casting the metal, rather than working with metal wire. The metalworkers attached the base of these 30 threads to two curved sheets of wax, forming the lower third of the resonator. Finally the artists applied additional threads of wax to the model in order to form the loop at top, the six zigzag motifs, and the plain bands. The addition of this last feature helped to reinforce certain areas, such as a join or edges. After casting, the ceramic core was removed. Whether a clapper was originally cast with the bell is uncertain. If it was, then it was likely pre-made and inserted into the ceramic core and then freed up to move around the resonator when the core was taken out. Metallographic studies of similar bells (Hosler 1994, 135, fig. 5.3) have indicated that they are usually cast as one piece. Thus, the loop at top was likely part of the original wax model and was cast with the rest of the bell.


The bell presently has a black color over much of its surface, which may relate to a natural corrosion product. There is also a tan color in certain areas, especially in the crevices in the ridged area on the resonator. This likely relates to soil from the bell’s place of deposition. At some point in the object’s itinerary, it was highly polished—the zigzag motifs have a notable luster.


For producing this bell, there would have been a range of metal sources available to metalworkers in West Mexico and the Valley of Mexico (García 2016, fig. 9; Hosler 2014, fig. 14.10; Schulze 2008, 433-38). Copper is plentiful in the form of copper oxides, sulfides, and carbonates. Arsenic may be found as arsenopyrite, which tends to be associated with chalcopyrite, a source of copper. Lead can appear on its own or as part of compound minerals. Finally, tin is the most restricted of these four in its distribution, typically only being found in the Central Plateau.


The zigzag motifs on the bell are an important feature in contextualizing the object chronologically. They connect the bell, stylistically, to the so-called Period 2 of metallurgy in West Mexico, which saw greater use of alloying to fabricate metal objects (Hosler 1994, fig. 5.2). Recent archaeological studies have shown that Period 2 ranges from the 11th to 16th centuries (García 2016). While there is no evidence of metallurgical production in the Cuenca de Sayula in West Mexico, a range of metal objects were recovered from domestic, funerary, and "civic-ceremonial" contexts in the region; in some cases, the funerary contexts are located within the domestic settings. At San Juan Atoyac, six bells were found around a person’s ankles, and at certain sites, people have been found wearing bells and metal tweezers, underscoring that the bells are part of a wider burial attire.



The zigzag motif is thought to relate to lightning and to snakes, often associated with the deity Tlaloc (see 1978.412.248) and more broadly with fertility in Mesoamerica. As Hosler (1994, 235-41) notes, the sounds of bells are important for promoting fertility. Nevertheless, people chose to keep the ceramic casting core within certain bells that were deposited in the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlán (Schulze 2008, 519). This meant that any clapper inside the resonator could not move, although such bells could create sound by striking each other or other objects. Between the likelihood that the present object may have adorned a person’s body and its role in sound production, it is difficult to associate the bell with a particular functional category, such as "musical instruments." Importantly, this bell and other similar bells have an effect in the world that can combine the visual, the sonic, and the tactile, while also depending on human interaction.


Bells similar to the present example have been recovered from Paquimé, Tzintzuntzan, the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlán, and the Cenote Sagrado at Chichén Itzá. In Chihuahua, Mexico, the site of Paquimé has shown evidence of metallurgical production, with copper and copper alloy objects being found alongside pieces of native copper and cuprite among other minerals (Palmer et al. 1998). The production dates from the 13th to the 15th centuries. The objects include bells with a cast filigree design similar to the present object. Some of these bells, unlike many other Period 2 metal objects, are made of almost pure copper.


Other analogous bells are from Tzintzuntzan, located in Michoacán and the center of the Tarascan society, which emerged primarily between the 14th and 15th centuries in West Mexico. There are 12 pear-shaped bells from burial 32 at this site that exhibit a cast filigree design (Rubín de la Borbolla 1944, fig. 15). Several of these show vertical zigzag motifs on their resonators. Hosler (1994, tables 5.1, 5.3) studied some of the bells from Tzintzuntzan and, in her typology, the present example would belong to Type 8c. In the case of that type, however, the zigzag motif extends slightly onto the lower plain third of the resonator. These bells are made from either copper-arsenic or copper-tin, decisions on the part of metallurgists that would affect the casting properties of the bells, as well as their colors and sounds. Spear (1978, fig. 262) notes several bells with a cast filigree design from Michoacán. These include a bell that features a patch of cotton attached to the lower part of its resonator, and other bells with maguey fibers on their loops. This gives an indication that the bells were indeed attached to other materials or suspended.


Similar pear-shaped, cast filigree bells, some with vertical zigzag motifs, have been found as part of offerings at the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlán, the Mexica capital in the Valley of Mexico (Schulze 2008, fig. 8.8). This structure was dedicated to the deities Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli. The present example belongs to Type 3-D-c in Schulze’s typology. Such bells were cast with copper-lead or copper-arsenic and are considered to have been made in the Valley of Mexico (Schulze 2008, 515). Most of the pear-shaped bells date between Phases IVb and V of the Templo Mayor’s construction, that is, between A.D. 1469 and A.D. 1486.

Several bells analogous to the present example were recovered from the Cenote Sagrado, a water-filled sinkhole where people made offerings at Chichén Itzá in Mexico (Cockrell et al. 2015; Ruvalcaba Sil et al. 2016). Some of the bells that have been studied are copper alloys. It is possible that people brought these bells, or that the bells passed through several stages of travel, from West Mexico or the Valley of Mexico. The Cenote was a site that people visited to make offerings—of objects and of humans—at least into the 16th century. The inclusion of objects like tweezers that were specific to production by Tarascan metallurgists suggests that some of the ritualized meanings of these metal objects—worn on the body in burial in some cases—were translated into a new context over great distances. Like the bells noted in these cases, the present bell has a significance it carries beyond its material form. This significance would have been borne out in association with people, with other materials, like tweezers and textiles, and with intentionally chosen places, like a human burial, a temple, or a cenote.


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


Related objects: 1978.412.248, 89.4.642, 89.4.1952, 89.4.1953, 89.4.3306


Further reading


Cockrell, Bryan, José Luis Ruvalcaba Sil, and Edith Ortiz Díaz. "For Whom the Bells Fall: Metals from the Cenote Sagrado, Chichén Itzá." Archaeometry 57, no. 6 (2015): 977-95.


García Zaldúa, Johan Sebastián. "Nuevos conocimientos sobre la metalurgia antigua del occidente de México: Filiación cultural y cronología en la Cuenca de Sayula, Jalisco." Latin American Antiquity 27, no. 2 (2016): 184-206.


Hosler, Dorothy. The Sounds and Colors of Power. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994.


———. "Mesoamerican Metallurgy: The Perspective from the West." In Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective, edited by Benjamin W. Roberts and Christopher P. Thronton, 329-59. New York: Springer, 2014.


Palmer, J. W., M. G. Hollander, P. S. Z. Rogers, T. M. Benjamin, C. J. Duffy, J. B. Lambert, and J. A. Brown. "Pre-Columbian Metallurgy: Technology, Manufacture, and Microprobe Analyses of Copper Bells from the Greater Southwest." Archaeometry 40, no. 2 (1998): 361-82.


Rubín de la Borbolla, Daniel F. Orfebrería tarasca. México: 1944.


Ruvalcaba Sil, José Luis, Bryan Cockrell, and Edith Ortiz Díaz. "Here Comes the Hammer: Sheet Objects from the Cenote Sagrado, Chichén Itzá." Historical Metallurgy 50, no. 1 (2016): 11-27.


Schulze, Niklas. El proceso de producción metalúrgica en su contexto cultural: Los cascabeles de cobre del Templo Mayor de Tenochtitlán. PhD thesis. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2008.

Spear, Jr., Nathaniel. A Treasury of Archaeological Bells. New York: Hastings House Publishers, 1978.