A garden of gold

(Golden llama figurine, Inka, left)  (Maize cobs, Inka c. 1440-1533, right)


Gardens from everywhere, always have a certain glow to them, that make them unique, beautiful, and exciting. This one such garden takes the cake, this garden was made of gold and silver. Its name is Qorikancha (Golden Temple) in the Inca capital Cusco. This impressive garden held many items; such as miniature llamas, corn, flowers, and people all made of gold and silver (smarthistory.org). With some objects containing other metals like copper, while some were metal alloys. The image to the left shows a miniature 6cm golden llama. There were also other figurines that stood 6cm tall, made of gold or silver. The image to the right shows a life-size piece of corn stock or Maize Cob; being an alloy containing silver and copper. The corn cob is hollow, the ear of the corn is shown as if breaking through the husk, ready to harvest. Although these two works of art have survived along with some others; the Spanish raids happened and stole most of the valuable items from the garden. As they were encouraged by stories of cities of gold, being greedy they sought out these legends and took all they could find.




Dr. Emily Engel, "Maize cobs," in Smarthistory, August 9, 2015, accessed November 11, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/maize-cobs/. 


LazoHerencia, Steff. 2020. "Coricancha: Cusco's Golden Temple of the Sun." Peru For Less. July 30, 2020. https://www.peruforless.com/blog/coricancha/#:~:text=Coricancha%2C%20also%20spelled%20Koricancha%20or%20Qorikancha%2C%20means%20%E2%80%9CGolden,of%20the%20city%20for%20locals%20and%20tourists%20alike./

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 12, 2020 at 12:07 PM

    david great post, that really cool how they had a full garden full of golf and silver. Very unique, i think its interesting how they were made to scale. thats a bummer that most of them were stolen.

    ReplyDelete

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