3-074-504 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Gold ornaments from graves of the Incas of Peru - front view of unique golden "celt" or wedge, 1883. Item from '...a very interesting and unique collection of gold ornaments from the "Huacas" or graves of the Incas of Peru. They were obtained by Senor Don Leocadio Maria Arango, of Medellin, during a residence of thirty years in that country, but have now passed into the collection of Lady Brassey...Gold, in the figurative language of the people, was the substance of "the tears wept by the Sun."...Fig. 22. front view of the rarest object in the collection, which is, without doubt, unique. It is a celt or wedge, of the neolithic type, in pure gold; the edge of which has evidently been hardened by hammering. It is the precise type of the ordinary Scandinavian celt, and is the only known existing specimen of the true type in the precious metal'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.