El Caño is a town in the Coclé province of Panama, named for Juan Sebastián Elcano, the Spanish Basque explorer who completed the first circumnavigation of the world. Near the modern village there is one of Panama’s most important archaeological sites: a ceremonial and burial place of pre-Columbian times. The site has been plundered in the 1920s, but is installed as a small archaeological park today. It continues to yield fascinating archaeological finds, even today.
The 12th January issue of the National Geographic magazine featured a story on recent excavations carried out at the Gran Coclé site of El Cano, one of the chiefdoms of central Panama. A lot is known about the central Panamanian chiefs largely due to the efforts of Gaspar de Espinosa, a 16th century Spanish conquistador who visited the region from 1516. Espinosa described the powerful chiefs who ruled competing tribes and held elaborate burial rituals.
Among the personal treasures of a chief recovered at El Caño include a seahorse pendant about three inches tall, ear ornaments, part of a breastplate, a necklace, and plaques. All were buried in a bag studded with the surrounding stone beads, which scattered as the fibers decayed. But as the National Geographic coverage shows, that’s not all we know. Excavations at Gran Coclé sites have been conducted for a century or so now, and remarkable finds at burials have included what Howard Carter would have called amazing things: gobs of gold artifacts, ceramic pots, stingray spines, shark teeth, and ivory, bone, quartz and emeralds buried with important individuals. The most recent excavations, led by Julia Mayo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and supported by the National Geographic Society, have unearthed several new elite burials.
The National Geographic coverage has, as usual, amazing photographs of the excavations, artifacts and monuments of the region. Finds have indicated a number of identifiable native cultures.
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