Crafting the voice of God: ceramic waylla kepa shell horn technology in the Andes

• Published in: Journal of anthropological archaeology 2023-03, Vol.69, p.101470, Article 101470
• Main Authors: Herrera Wassilowsky, Alexander, Druc, Isabelle C., Camilo González Galvis, Juan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Andes; Ceramic petrography; Ethnoarchaeology; Ethnohistory; Music archaeology; Quechua linguistics; Ritual soundscapes; Shell horns; X-ray diffraction; X-ray tomography
• ISSN: 0278-4165; 1090-2686
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101470

•Shell horn production for Andean rituals shifted between conch and ceramic over millennia.•In the early colonial period shell horns were used in propitiatory pilgrimages.•Ceramic shell horns were complex musical instruments crafted by itinerant specialists.•Technological hotspots indicate independent invention and long-distance interaction.•Performance in ensembles shaped the soundscapes of ceremonial centers. This paper addresses the enchainment of skills and interactions for the production of ceramic shell horns, and the meaning of these musical instruments whose sounds have shaped the ritual soundscapes of the central Andes since the boom in public architecture in the second millennium BC (early Formative Period c. 3800–3300 BP). Linguistic and ethnohistoric reviews shed light on performance practices and meanings at the time of conquest. Contextual analysis of thin sections of ceramic shell horns excavated in Keushu (Yungay, Ancash, Peru) and dated to the Early Intermediate Period and early Middle Horizon (c. 2200–1600 BP) suggests the agency of specialist itinerant potters. Crafting processes are reconstructed by bringing together material analysis (petrography, X-ray tomography, X-ray diffraction), bioarchaeology, studies of instrument organology, and ceramic ethnoarchaeology. Informed by experimental reconstruction distinct modeling techniques are distinguished and crossed with available provenience data to suggest three independently arising traditions or hotspots in northern Ecuador, on the central Andean coast, and in the highlands of northern Peru. The ritual sounds and soundscapes of the latter area are discussed. Like earlier conch horns, ceramic shell horns played a pivotal part in ritual performances that accompanied the development of irrigation-dependent agrarian and pastoral lifeways in the Andes. Enduring symbolic linkages between shell horn sounds, the sea and irrigation water may indeed represent a powerful embodiment of the voice of God.