Postal Gold Blog – Everything About Gold

Gold was enormously important in the Inca Empire.  It was not used as currency and had no monetary value.  Instead, gold was sought after for its religious value.  In Inca mythology, gold represented the sun, while silver represented the moon and copper represented the earth, all of which were worshipped as deities.  The Incas made an alloy of gold, copper and silver, which resulted in a metal that they called ‘tumbanga’.

Tumbanga melted at a lower temperature than that of gold or silver, was harder than copper and nearly as malleable as pure gold.  For that reason, tumbanga was the ideal metal for manufacturing all gold objects in the Inca Empire.

Objects made of tumbanga were used for funerals and other religious ceremonies.  At funerals, the deceased were decorated with masks, breastplates and headdresses made of gold.  Ceremonies often required sacrifices to the gods, and gold instruments were used for killing the  sacrificial animals.  Rattles, cups and sculptures made from tumbanga were also used in the ceremonies.  Inca craftsmen were highly creative and talented and made necklaces, bracelets, sandals and many other ornaments with tumbanga.  There were almost no limits to what the Inca craftsmen could produce with gold.  Women from families of high social status sometimes dressed from head to toe with plates of gold.

When a person died, the descendants did not inherit the gold.  Instead, all gold was buried with the deceased.  This is why the best collections of Inca gold have been found in tombs by archaeologists and treasure hunters.  Incas also used gold to decorate the walls and altars of their most important temples.

When the Spaniards discovered the Americas, they also discovered the large amounts of gold that the Incas had.  For them, gold had no religious value but was highly coveted for its monetary value.  While the colonisation of the Americas was violent enough, the opportunity to acquire gold made it even more so.

The Spaniards plundered the Inca temples, took sacred statues of deities and other religious objects and melted them to make gold coins.  They sent ships laden with tumbanga home to Spain.  But these ships were frequently attacked by pirates, who also wanted a piece of the treasure!  Since the ships were made of wood and were much more fragile than our modern ships, they were often sunk, either due to pirates or stormy weather on the seas.  This resulted in much of the Inca gold ending up on bottom of the ocean, where much of it still lies today!

Wouldn’t it be exciting to go deep-sea diving on a treasure hunt for ancient Inca gold?