Tupu Before 17th century Wari or Inca (?) This object is a tupu, a Quechua term for pin (pithu in Aymara and alfiler in Spanish). Women in the Andes have used these pins to fasten textile garments, such as the acsu or lliclla (please see below for further discussion of these garments). Tupus have a basic form that consists of a head and a stem, but there is wide variation in their design. In this case, the head is large and almost elliptical: the head’s width (~6 cm) is noticeably greater than its length (~5 cm). There is a circular perforation in the lower portion of the head, closer to the s

Tupu Before 17th century Wari or Inca (?) This object is a tupu, a Quechua term for pin (pithu in Aymara and alfiler in Spanish). Women in the Andes have used these pins to fasten textile garments, such as the acsu or lliclla (please see below for further discussion of these garments). Tupus have a basic form that consists of a head and a stem, but there is wide variation in their design. In this case, the head is large and almost elliptical: the head’s width (~6 cm) is noticeably greater than its length (~5 cm). There is a circular perforation in the lower portion of the head, closer to the stem. The perforation is found on the central lengthwise axis of the tupu, in line with the stem. The tupu’s head is significantly thinner than its stem. Circular in cross section, the stem terminates in a point. Records in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum note that, on its accession to the Museum’s collections, this tupu was identified as made of "gilded silver." The metal indeed has a silver appearance and some areas of the head have an orange or golden hue. Without further analysis, it is difficult to draw any inferences about the metal’s composition or whether the surface is gilded. In order to create this object, metalworkers hammered sheet. They likely alternated between hammering and annealing (please see definition in note [1]), the latter employed in order to soften the metal and make it more conducive to hammering. The presence of the slightly thicker region of the head, just above the stem, suggests that the the workers hammered the head out of a single metal piece that includes the stem. They likely chiseled the shape of the circular head with a metal implement, and then perforated the head with a metal punch. The perforation appears to have been made from the reverse (where the accession number is recorded), as a burr is present on the obverse around part of the perforation’s edge. (For more informa

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