Thumbprints of the Midas Touch: What Shipwrecked Gold reveals about Spanish Colonialism

Under Spanish Colonial rule, gold and silver in the Americas was not only mined, but also melted from original pieces produced by artisans of indigenous groups, erasing objects from cultural identities. This talk focuses on efforts to recover features of those objects that became bars and ingots, from metallurgical analysis to archive research.

About the Speaker: Charlotte Williams is a PhD student in the Anthropology Department at the University of Pennsylvania and holds degrees from Princeton University and the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar. Her research interests surround archaeology and cultural heritage of the colonial Andes, with a focus on how people use archaeology in politics and identity today.