Photo Gallery

Round copper disk, divided into eight sections, with geometric designs, perhaps stylized feathers. The disk may have been fastened to a piece of clothing. Diameter: 9.68 inches. Casas Grandes (Mexico), AFM. Copper items reached the Southwest through trade channels starting in the 10th century. They were exchanged for pottery and turquoise and are most commonly found in Hohokam and Anasazi sites.
AFM = Amerind Foundation Museum, Dragoon (Arizona)

Copper container shaped like a turtle and decorated with geometric figures. Length: 4 inches, height: 1.2 inches. Casas Grandes (Mexico), AFM.
AFM = Amerind Foundation Museum, Dragoon (Arizona)

From left (without arm clasp): Small copper bells which were used during religious ceremonies; diameters range from 1 to 1.28 inches. - Copper pendant, 2.16 inches high, weight .385 ounces. - Copper disk, perhaps a pendant, 1.78 inches diameter, .02 inches thick. - Copper axe with two holes and a haft set at 3/4 of its length. Length: 5.12 inches. Casas Grandes (Mexico), AFM.
AFM = Amerind Foundation Museum, Dragoon (Arizona)

Haida copper with etched and painted bear motif. The copper plate is more than 100 years old. (74 cm: MOA, A7102)
MOA = Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

The legends are only available in German, French or Spanish
Fonte de cuivre à La Oraya (département de Junin). - 1969

The Morococha mine produces silver, zinc, copper and lead. It is located at 4,540 m in the central Andes, near the Ticlio Pass, which connects Lima with the eastern parts of the country. - 1969

Musicians - Inca Norteño - weight 3 g each, height 33 mm - silver, copper and gold alloy - 15th century - Brüning Lambayeque Museum - 1976

Chimú-Lambayeque Culture - XII. Century - Diameter: 10 cm - Weight 25 g - Burial figure dressed with an ornamental skirt and a burial mask on the face - consists of equal parts of gold, silver and copper - cast and hammered - Museo Arqueológico Brünning - Lambayeque - 1976

The Morococha mine produces silver, zinc, copper and lead. It is located at 4,540 m in the central Andes, near the Ticlio Pass, which connects Lima with the eastern parts of the country. - 1969

The Toquepala mine in the Tacna region is one of the five largest copper mines in the world in terms of reserves. It is operated by Southern Copper Corporation (a subsidiary of Grupo México). The railway line shown in the picture forms part of the private industrial rail network known as the Ferrocarril Ilo-Toquepala-Cuajone. The line was built around 1959–1960 to transport the mined copper concentrate directly from the deep open-cast mine over the Andean passes to the smelter and the export port at Ilo. – Peru – 1976

The Chilean Exploration Company, a subsidiary of the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, had been operating the copper mines at Chuquicamata since 1905. Together with the Braden Copper Company and Anden Copper Mining, these three North American companies controlled 95 per cent of copper mining. As copper was the country’s most important source of foreign exchange, the nationalisation of the copper mines became one of the most important political tasks. In 1971, Salvador Allende nationalised the copper industry, a measure that even the military junta was unable to reverse following its coup. - Book: Picture 171 - Chile - 1976

The copper mines of Chuquicamata, situated at 2,800 metres in the Puna de Atacama. The reserves of copper ore in this, the world’s largest open-cast copper mine, are estimated at around one billion tonnes. - Book: Picture 169 - Chile - 1976

Chuquicamata is the world’s largest open-cast copper mine and is situated in the heart of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The mine’s enormous pit is more than 4 kilometres long, 3 kilometres wide and over 1,000 metres deep. – The photograph shows the extracted ore being smelted at extremely high temperatures and processed into pure copper at the adjacent Chuquicamata copper smelter (Fundición). – Chile – 1976

The huge copper smelter and industrial facilities at the Chuquicamata copper mine in the Chilean Atacama Desert. In the foreground, settling ponds (thickening tanks) and extensive processing areas can be seen, whilst in the background, smoking chimneys and the barren slopes of the desert mountains rise up. Chuquicamata (often called ‘Chuqui’) belongs to the Chilean state-owned mining company Codelco and has shaped global copper production for over a century. – Chile – 1976