Huayra furnace
A huayra furnace or huayrachinas (meaning "place through which wind blows" in Imperial Quechua) is an Andean artisan furnace of Prehispanic design. Huayras were wind-driven and used to smelt copper.[1] The furnance has the shape of a small turret with opening for wind to enter and drive the combustion.[2] Molten metal collects at the bottom together with slag and for most purposes once separated from the slag it needs further processing to remove impurities.[2]
In Bolivia they were in use at least until the late 19th century and were known form colonial-era description of 1640. Museo Nacional de La Paz in Bolivia host a reconstruction of a huayra.[1] The Atacama Desert's Tarapacá valley alone had 26 archaeological huayra sites identified by 2013.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Zori, Colleeen; Tropper, Peter; Scott, David (2013). "Copper production in late prehispanic northern Chile". Journal of Archaeological Science. 40 (2): 1165. Bibcode:2013JArSc..40.1165Z. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.09.012.
- ^ a b "Nota Área de Antropología: Metaleros prehispánicos". mnhn.gob.cl (in Spanish). Chilean National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 2025-06-02.
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