Bird Pendant 300 – Early Quimbaya Technical note: Optical microscopy and XRF conducted in 2017. This pendant in the shape of a bird was primarily produced through lost wax casting. Made of an alloy of gold, it depicts a stylized bird with identifying features of a head, neck, body, and tail. The lower areas of the bird, its abdomen and limbs, are not shown. Depicting the bird in this way suggests that it is "posad[a] en agua" ("at rest in water"), as Pérez de Barradas (1966, 106) inferred for a similar avian pendant. All of the design features of this pendant were originally made in

Bird Pendant 300 – Early Quimbaya Technical note: Optical microscopy and XRF conducted in 2017. This pendant in the shape of a bird was primarily produced through lost wax casting. Made of an alloy of gold, it depicts a stylized bird with identifying features of a head, neck, body, and tail. The lower areas of the bird, its abdomen and limbs, are not shown. Depicting the bird in this way suggests that it is "posad[a] en agua" ("at rest in water"), as Pérez de Barradas (1966, 106) inferred for a similar avian pendant. All of the design features of this pendant were originally made in the wax except for the two crescent-shaped danglers, which were made separately from hammered sheet and added after casting. The underside of the bird reveals that the object was open-back-cast (see image 2). A ceramic-charcoal core that gave the object its basic shape was enclosed in wax, but one side (the underside) was left exposed. When the ceramic investment was built around the wax model, it came into contact with the exposed core, fusing with it to form a stabilizing structure in and around the cast metal. The cavity that once contained the core extends from the head of the bird up to but not including the tail. Other features are indicative of the casting process. There are remains of a sprue—used to channel molten metal into the mold—on the proper left side of the bird (see image 3). However, this feature also may relate to the presence of a bar that would have connected this bird to another, forming a pair, similar to other objects in this corpus. Another possible sprue is seen at the end of the tail visible from the underside. The beak of the bird is prominently featured; its length further suggests it is a water bird. Its mouth is open and, when making the wax model, the artists used a wire-like wax thread to outline the mouth. There is a circular eye on each side of the head with a small circular depression at its center representing the pupil. The bird has

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