Art history doctoral candidate works to reconstruct Andean art’s ancient past

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State art history doctoral candidate Kyle Marini’s research journey into ancient Andean art, which focuses on art created by the Inca Empire in the Andes region of South America in the 15th and 16th centuries, has been challenging because of one simple fact — the artwork he studies has been almost entirely destroyed.

To overcome the challenge, Marini has leaned on resources at Penn State such as the Radiocarbon Laboratory to reconstruct an ancient past. The process allows him to determine the age of fiber samples from various textile artifacts. Marini recently named a 2024 McNeil Center Fellow and a 2025 Marilynn Thoma Predoctoral Fellow of the Art of the Spanish Americas, which will further support his research and dissertation.

The field of Andean art history typically utilizes documentary records and visual analysis of artworks to reconstruct the time period. Most Andean artworks in museum collections lack accompanying information to support their interpretation, Marini explained.

“I was so delighted to learn that Penn State has one of the country's leading radiocarbon facilities,” Marini said. "I have taken full advantage of those resources.”

As part of his research, and with official approval from various museums, Marini exported samples of textiles believed to be Inca from Spain and Peru. He shadowed lab technicians in Penn State's Radiocarbon Prep Lab to learn the wet chemistry pre-treatment process of the fibers.

Alongside Laurie Eccles, a research technologist in the lab, he cleaned, combusted and converted the processed fibers into graphite that Brendan Culleton, associate research professor and lab director, radiocarbon dated with an accelerated mass spectrometer.

“The preliminary results that I am sifting through are surprising, and some of the textiles predate the Inca empire by as much as 500 years,” Marini said. “There is probably nowhere else in the world where that is an issue outside of Peru's desert coast, where organic material is perfectly preserved across the span of millennia.”

After the scientific analysis, the decontextualized artworks become primary sources to illuminate their historical moment without relying exclusively on traditional art historical methods that simply aren't available, he added.

Since Marini came to Penn State in 2019 to earn a master’s degree while studying under Amara Solari, professor of art history and anthropology, he has completed six consecutive foreign language fellowship programs. To support his research, he focused on the indigenous language of Quechua, which was formerly spoken by the Incas and is still spoken by nearly 10 million people.

Over the last five years, he has branched out to include two additional dialects of Quechua spoken in Ecuador and Bolivia, which has allowed him to cover the bulk of the Andes mountains that the Incas colonized.

During the McNeil Center Fellowship, Marini will work at the University of Pennsylvania with a collection of Andean textiles that were excavated in the early twentieth century at the coastal site of Pachacamac, Peru. After finishing his material research at the University of Pennsylvania, the Marilynn Thoma Fellowship will fund international travel needed to finalize his dissertation research.

Besides scientific analyses and Quechua linguistics, his research methodology includes archival research, field research and experimental reconstruction of textiles. These methods enable him to conceive the appearance and viewer impact of a 900-foot rope that is the primary focus of his dissertation, he said.

“I believe that art history is at a pivotal stage where it will continue to change significantly in the coming years, and students will need to be prepared with emerging research methods to keep up with developments,” Marini said. “After Penn State, I want to start a career where I can take part in shaping the discipline and further its service to the needs of students and academic communities.”