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Signature Redacted Thesis Supervisor An Assessment of Stingless Beeswax as a Pattern Material in Ancient Mesoamerican Lost-Wax Casting by Eleni Chrisoula Pitses Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology June 2018 2018 Eleni Chrisoula Pitses. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature redacted Signature of Author: Department of Mechanical Engineering May 11, 2018 Signature redacted Certified by: Michael J. Tarkanian Senior Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering Signature redacted Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: MASSACH SETS INSTrrUTE Rohit Kamik QF TECHNOWGY Professor of Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Officer SEP 13 2018 1 LIBRARIES ARCHIVES 2 An Assessment of Stingless Beeswax as a Pattern Material in Ancient Mesoamerican Lost-Wax Casting by Eleni Chrisoula Pitses Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering on May 11, 2018 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering ABSTRACT Metal objects were of great cultural significance in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Historical and archaeological evidence prove that these items were made by the process of investment casting, or "lost wax" casting, by which a wax model of the object is created, and a ceramic mold is built around it. The wax is melted out to allow for the pouring of the molten metal. Considerable research has focused on the alloy composition of these objects, and some research has been done on the ceramic molds, but little is known about the composition, source, and manufacture of the wax itself. This paper builds upon work by Michael Tarkanian and Dr. Elizabeth Paris, attempting to fill this gap in the literature. Spanish written accounts of ancient Mesoamerican casting processes mention that wax from stingless bees was mixed with copal, or tree resin, and used to form the models for lost-wax casting. Waxes from Mexican stingless bees Melipona beecheii, Scaptotrigonapectoralis, and Melipona yucatanica were considered in this study, in addition to three copals: Bursera copallifera, Protium copal, and Pinus contorta. Thermal data from Differential Scanning Calorimetry revealed no changes in thermal behavior between waxes and their blends with copals, showing that none of the blends considered in this study are miscible. However, hardness testing revealed that the blends of Pinus contorta with Melipona beecheii and with Melipona yucatanica were harder than their respective waxes. This is in line with a Spanish account of the casting process, which mentions that copal was added so the wax may "[become firm and] harden well"[ 1]. Including data collected by Tarkanian and Paris, the most favorable material for investment casting would be Friesomelittanigra wax mixed with Bursera copallifera, according to the criteria considered in this study. Thesis Supervisor: Michael J. Tarkanian Tile: Senior Lecturer in Materials Science and Engineering 3 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Michael Tarkanian for his help and guidance throughout the research, experimentation, and writing process. His mentorship was invaluable to this work. I would also like to thank Geetha Berera for the time, care, and patience she put into training me on the DSC and helping with data collection. Thanks to her guidance, I can collect and interpret DSC data with confidence. Finally, I would like to thank Elizabeth Paris, Pedro Delgado K6, and Elizabeth Meanwell for providing the wax samples from the Yucatan. 4 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Mesoamerican Castings 3. Materials 3.1. Beeswax 3.1.1 Bee Species 3.1.2 Maya Beekeeping 3.1.2.1 Religious significance 3.1.2.2 Economic significance 3.2 Copal 3.3 Wax-Copal Blends 4. Experimental 4.1. Materials Tested 4.2. Properties Measured 4.3. Procedure 4.3.1. Sample Preparation 4.3.2. Thermal Testing 4.3.3. Hardness Testing 5. Data and Analysis 5.1. Thermal Properties of Waxes 5.2. Miscibility of Wax-Copal Blends 5.3. Thermal Properties of Wax-Copal Blends 5.4 Hardness of Waxes and Wax-Copal Blends 6. Conclusions 7. Future Work 5 List of Figures Figure 2a: Tuyeres excavated from the Bataln Grande region of Peru Figure 2b: Drawing of casting process from Sahagn'n's FlorentineCodex Figure 2c: Illustration of bell types identified from excavations at Mayapin Figure 3a: Area inhabited by Melipona yucatanica Figure 3b: Area inhabited by Melipona beecheii Figure 3c: Area inhabited by Scaptotrigonapectoralis Figure 3d: Depictions of bees and bee gods from the Tro-CortesianusCodex Figure 3e: DSC data for Apis mellifera, Friesomelittanigra, and T fulviventris, from Tarkanian and Paris Figure 3f: DSC data for Bursera copallifera, Pinus contorta, and Protium copal, from Tarkanian and Paris Figure 3g: DSC data for Apis mellifera and a 50% by weight blend of Apis mellifera with Bursera copallifera, from Tarkanian and Paris Figure 3h: DSC data for Frieseomelittanigra wax and 42%-58% by weight blend of B. copallifera-F.nigra,from Tarkanian and Paris Figure 3i: DSC data for Victory Brown foundry wax, and a 42%-58% by weight blend of B. copallifera-F.nigra, from Tarkanian and Paris Figure 3j: Hardness data collected by Tarkanian and Paris Figure 3k: ASTM D 1321 hardness of F. nigra-B. copallifera blend as a function of weight % of B. copalifera, from Tarkanian and Paris Figure 31: Ash content data from Tarkanian and Paris Figure 4a: Wax samples during first stage of filtration Figure 4b: Wax samples after all filtration Figure 4c: Copal samples before filtration Figure 4d: Bursera Copallifera after filtration Figure 4e: Dimensioned drawing of needle for ASTM D I321-16a, "Standard Method for Needle Penetration of Petroleum Waxes" Figure 4f: Hardness testing apparatus Figure 5a: DSC data for pure waxes 6 Figure 5b: Table of miscibility of wax-copal blends Figure 5c: DSC data for M. beecheii and all blends with M. beecheii Figure 5d: DSC data for M. yucatanica and all blends with M. yucatanica Figure 5e: Hardness data of all waxes and blends 7 1. Introduction Metal objects were of great cultural significance in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Historical and archaeological evidence prove that these items were made by the process of investment casting, or "lost wax" casting, by which a wax model of the object is created, and a ceramic mold is built around it. The wax is melted out to allow for the pouring of the molten metal. Considerable research has focused on the alloy composition of these objects, and some research has been done on the ceramic molds, but little is known about the composition, source, and manufacture of the wax itself. Spanish written accounts exist, describing the process of lost-wax casting. Bernardino de Sahagd'n was a catholic priest, missionary, and ethnographer who journeyed from Spain to the New World in 1529. The Florentine Codex is a twelve-book ethnographic work written by Sahagan based on his observations of the Maya. In Book 9 of the Florentine Codex, he gives a description of ancient Mesoamerican casting processes. The process would begin with fabrication of molds. The craftsmen fashioned [and] designed objects by the use of charcoal [and clay molds] and beeswax [models] to cast gold and silver. With this [step] they made a beginning in their craft[l]. Foundry wax would be surrounded by this mold material, taking the shape of the metal object to be fabricated. Below, Sahagdin describes the fabrication of this wax material. When the charcoal [core of the mold] had been prepared, designed, carved, then the beeswax melted. It was mixed with white copal, so that it would [become firm and] 8 harden well. Then it was purified, strained, so that its foreign matter, its dirt, the impure beeswax, could fall[1]. Michael Tarkanian, together with Dr. Elizabeth Paris, originally set out to study thermomechanical properties of mixtures of various species of stingless beeswaxes and copal species to assess their suitability as foundry materials[2]. It was their hypothesis that there may be an ideal mix of beeswax species and copal species, as well as ideal ratio of wax to copal [2]. This thesis expands on their work, testing the thermal and mechanical properties of waxes, copals, and mixtures of the two, in order to try to identify blends that may have been used by the Maya. 2. Mesoamerican Castings Metallurgy in the New World first emerged in the Andes between 1800 and 2000 BC[3]. The first known instance of Mesoamerican metallurgy was found in western Mexico, dating between 600 and 700 AD[4]. Because of its sudden appearance in the area, and the similarity to practices in South America, some scholars believe that people came by boat from the Andes, bringing with them their metallurgical traditions [4]. Most of Western Mexico is rich in metallic resources, especially copper, silver, and gold. Copper was the predominant resource, and it was used most extensively. Between 650 and 1200/1300 AD, western Mexican metalsmithing was not particularly sophisticated. They appear to have used almost exclusively either native copper, or easily-smelted copper from oxidized copper ores [5]. However, from about 1300 to the time of the Spanish conquest, Mesoamerican metalworkers appear to have produced multiple copper-based alloys, including copper-arsenic, copper-silver, copper-gold, copper-tin, copper-silver-gold, copper-silver-arsenic, copper-arsenic- antimony, and copper-arsenic-tin[4] [5]. 9 A major challenge towards the development of metallurgy in the New World was the attainment of high enough temperatures to melt metals from ores. While bellows do not seem to have been used in the New World, Andean workers developed the blow tube, which was made from a hollowed-out cane stem, and had a ceramic nozzle known as a tuyere on the furnace end to protect it from burning.[6] [7] .
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