Pre-Columbian Burial in Panama

Abstract

AN archæological expedition to Panama of the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Dr. J. Alden Mason, has discovered the tomb of a chief or official in which the intrinsic value of the personal ornaments recalls the stories of the early Conquistadores of the wealth of the Central American caciques in precious metal, to which the finds of Dr. Alfonso Caso on Monte Alban in Mexico have also borne eloquent testimony. The find was described by Dr. Mason in a first report of the expedition before the Eighth American Scientific Congress in Washington, D.C. He described the-burial, it is stated in a brief report circulated by Science Service, as a pit 11 ft. deep. In it had been laid the body of the chief, “resplendent … in shining gold”. His ornaments included gold cuffs and anklets, great shining disks of this metal ornamenting his clothing, golden ear-clips, bells, and beads. From layers of broken pottery, Dr. Mason concludes that the mourners must have danced on or trampled pottery into the grave in some burial rite. This discovery was made in a vegetation-covered graveyard on a plantation in Coclé Province, one hundred miles west of Panama City. The origin of the people responsible for the burial has not yet been determined; but the culture differs from that of both Maya and Aztec and points to South rather than North American affinities. The find is dated as belonging to the period 1300-1500 of our era.