The Diaspora of Pre-Columbian Objects from Atacama into a Global Network of Goods, Collectors, and Museums between 1850 and 1950

Pre-Columbian objects from Atacama not only held value and articulated social relations in pre-European times. To this day, and from at least the nineteenth century onward, they continue to play this role by being exhibited in national and international museum showcases, reproduced in catalogs, or owned by private collectors. It is clear that their past value was changed in these new contexts, but what did not change was their amazing ability to bring individuals and institutions together across time and space, even across continents and generations. The bonds forged in the acquisition, circulation, and possession of these ancient objects and collections formed a global network of relationships between humans and things. Such a web was not woven randomly or whimsically but rather warped within the structure of the world system where the Atacama Desert has participated since the mid-nineteenth century, orchestrated principally by the saltpeter, copper, industrial, and mercantile economies. The circulation and biographies of pre-Columbian objects from Atacama is an extraordinary source for understanding the world system in which they were extracted, exchanged, accumulated, assembled, inherited, and exhibited between 1850 and 1950. This dual reflection also opens up a fantastic possibility to better comprehend the role of the cultural works of the past in the making of each social reality at different moments in time.