Article ID: CBB057248718

The M de Jussieu’s ‘mirror of the Incas’: an Ecuadorian archaeological artefact in the mineralogical collection of René-Just Haüy (1743-1822) (2022)

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This article reports on a historical investigation carried out on the conical object MIN000-3519 preserved in the mineralogy collections of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris (France). The mineralogist René-Just Haüy (1743-1822) included this object, cut in a single pyrite (FeS2) crystal, in his working collection with the references ‘Sulphured iron, mirror of the Incas, of Peru, M. de Jussieu’. All of the research lines followed lead the author to Joseph de Jussieu (1704-1779) and his shipments of botanical specimens and various other samples from South America. As a member of the Godin-La Condamine-Bouguer geodesic expedition on the equator (1735-1743), he returned to France only after 36 years (1771), ill, exhausted and dispossessed of the scientific product of his Andean collections. This pyrite mirror is important because, in addition to appearing to be the only archaeological object that can be linked to Joseph's peregrinations in America, it resembles other specimens found at sites of the Cañaris culture (500-1500 AD) in Ecuador. Preserved within the de Jussieu family, this object would presumably have been given to Haüy by Joseph's heirs, his nephews Antoine-Laurent (1748-1836) or Laurent-Pierre (1792-1866), with whom he had close ties.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB057248718/

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Authors & Contributors
Wiederkehr, Karl Heinrich
Anaïs Mauuarin
Beltrán, José
Tom Stammers
Lisa Lafontaine
Blanckaert, Claude
Concepts
Mineralogy
Museums
Crystallography
Material culture
Manuscripts
Photography
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
17th century
Modern
20th century, early
20th century
Places
Paris (France)
France
Ecuador
Seine River (France)
Spain
Australia
Institutions
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
Paris. Jardin Royal des Plantes
Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
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