From the Curator
When asked what I think visitors will enjoy most about the exhibition "River of Gold: Precolumbian Treasures from Sitio Conte," my first response has to be the exquisite goldwork made by Panamanian goldsmiths more than a thousand years ago. The goldwork, which is almost entirely body ornamentation, is famous for its extraordinary beauty and sophisticated technology. Goldsmiths of Sitio Conte, working with the simplest of tools, utilized technologies such as embossing, lost-wax casting and depletion gilding that allowed them to achieve extraordinary aesthetic effects. Visitors will be impressed by the beauty of the pieces and intrigued by the meaning of their mysterious, figural designs.
Through these spectacular gold objects, the public will also be introduced to Precolumbian peoples who lived in central Panama between A.D. 450-1100. Very little is known about the ancient societies of Central America, which have long been overshadowed by the more famous Precolumbian civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andes. Frequently, pieces of Sitio Conte-style goldwork have been incorporated into museum exhibitions of goldwork from the Americas. Now for the first time, “River of Gold” presents these archaeological treasures within their cultural context.
Sitio Conte, an ancient cemetery, was the first major site in the Panamanian Isthmus to be excavated by professional archaeologists. Excavations carried out in 1940 by the Penn Museum recovered a large quantity of grave goods, including the goldwork featured in “River of Gold,” from a single, documented site. Evidence provided by the discovery of a powerful chief’s burial gives us a wealth of information about this previously unknown culture. Interestingly, burial practices in the Sitio Conte cemetery, abandoned six centuries before the Spanish Conquest, match up closely with those of the native peoples of the same area as described by Spaniards in 1521. By combining information from archaeological investigations at Sitio Conte with ethnohistoric data supplied by the Spanish conquistadors, “River of Gold” gives visitors a glimpse into the lives of people from a culture about which very little was known previously.
