| The Museum of the Rockies welcomes River of Gold: Precolumbian Treasures from Sitio Conte, an exhibition on Precolumbian gold from The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s excavations at an ancient cemetery in central Panama. Over 150 gold objects will be on display, circa AD 700 to 1100 — hammered repoussé plaques, nose ornaments, gold-sheathed ear rods, pendants, bells, bangles and beads — as well as ceramics, and objects of precious and semi-precious stone, of ivory and bone. This exhibition presents gold from Sitio Conte in its unique archaeological and cultural context, and features ethnohistorical information, excavation drawings and videotaped segments from original 1940 color film footage of the Sitio Conte excavations.
The cemeteries of Sitio Conte, which lie about 100 miles west of Panama City, were overlooked by gold-seeking Spaniards in the 16th century. The site was rediscovered at the turn of the century when the Rio Grande de Cocle shifted its bed, partially exposing the burials and their gold contents. The Peabody Museum of Harvard University carried out the first explorations in the 1930s; in the spring of 1940, a Penn Museum team headed by archaeologist J. Alden mason carried out three more months of excavations.
One uncovered multi-grave burial highlighted in the exhibits proved most spectacular, with great quantities of gold artifacts and jewelry placed on and around the grave’s chief occupant, a high status individual laid out on the middle level of the burial pit. Ethnohistorical information about life in 16th century Panama, as observed and recorded by Spanish conquistadors, is used to help understand the ancestral Panamanian peoples who used the Sitio Conte cemetery from about AD 700 to 1100. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, Spaniards recorded the presence of numerous chiefdoms, ruled by a quevi, or high chief, and organized into several social levels—an elite group controlling most of the power and wealth, a far more numerous commoner group, and slaves.
The Museum of the Rockies is located at 600 S. Kagy Blvd., on the MSU campus. |
