CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA—A set of six pyramid-shaped copper bells has been discovered at Yoroma, a Yampara settlement in southern Bolivia’s Oroncota Valley, according to a Greek Reporter article. Sonia Alconini of the University of Virginia and Walter Sánchez-Canedo of the Higher University of San Simón said that the bundle of bells, found inside a circular stone structure known as a qollqa where crops were stored, dates to between A.D. 1300 and 1536. Each of the bells had a different clapper made of copper, shell, or semiprecious stone, so that the bells would have produced different tones, ranging from bright and sharp to soft and low. The bells were found next to a small stone carving of an ear of maize, a polished stone, a land snail shell, and a stone ax. Alconini and Sánchez-Canedo think that the bells may have been used in a similar way to that of dancers from the modern Jalqa and Tarabuco communities, who wear spurs and bells to welcome a good harvest with metallic sounds during a festival known as Tata Pujllay. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Cambridge Archaeological Journal. To read about a sacred ancient Andean city in Bolivia, go to "Rise and Fall of Tiwanaku."
