ANCIENT GOLD ART IN THE NEW WORLD 
By Herbert J. Spinden 
HE Isthmus of Panama includes 
part of Colombia and the entire 
republics of Panama and Costa 
Rica. It has long been famous for the 
beautiful specimens of gold work, as 
well as of pottery and stone sculptures 
found in the stone-box graves of its 
early inhabitants. Most of the gold 
objects were seemingly worn as orna- 
ments before being buried with their 
In these gold objects the 
characteristic animal life of the region is 
represented and there are also many 
figures with a mythological or religious 
significance. 
Gold is taken from only a_ small 
percentage of the graves — probably 
from those of chiefs. Pottery and stone 
carvings are found in the ordinary run 
of burials but rarely in the ones that 
contain gold. A systematic rifling of 
the ancient cemeteries by  treasure- 
hunters has been going on since the 
coming of the Spaniards but most of 
their finds have gone into the melting 
pot. The burial places are sometimes 
made evident by low platforms built 
owners. 
Notre sy tHE AuvutTHor.— The ancient gold 
here described is part of a collection of more than 
15,000 archeological articles in gold, stone and 
pottery collected by Mr. Minor C. Keith in Costa 
Rica. From this great collection about 7000 
specimens chosen for exhibition and study, were 
deposited by Mr. Keith in the American Museum 
for an extended period. The exhibition now occu- 
pies about one-third of the Mexican hall and is 
unrivaled in beauty and richness as in more pro- 
saic scientific virtues. The gold specimens are 
installed in specially devised cases. 
Mr. Keith went to Costa Rica when a young 
man and engaged himself in the railroad building 
and commercial developments which have brought 
Costa Rica to the front rank among Central 
American republics. Foreseeing the great possi- 
bilities of tropical fruit in northern markets, he 
was instrumental in organizing the United Fruit 
Company which now operates the largest fleet of 
steamships under the American flag. Under Mr. 
Keith’s direction the growing, transporting and 
marketing of bananas has been brought to such 
over a number of graves. Sometimes 
the searchers use an iron rod giving 
forth a hollow sound when the stone 
cists are struck. The graves are small 
chambers lined with river boulders or 
with slabs of stone. Bones are rarely 
found in them but this may be no indi- 
cation of great age, for the climate is 
such as to hasten decay. There is little 
doubt that the makers of the gold figures 
were simply the ancestors of the Indian 
tribes that now inhabit the region. 
Costa Rica takes its name “rich coast” 
from the large quantity of gold obtained 
from the natives. 
Mr. Keith’s collection, now on deposit 
in the Mexican hall for a term of years, 
is the finest ever made in Central 
America. At Mercedes in northern 
Costa Rica many hundreds of graves 
were opened and a vast amount of pot- 
tery and stone sculptures was taken out, 
in addition to a considerable quantity 
of gold and jade. At this place there 
is now a great banana plantation but 
formerly the site was covered with dense 
forest. Mr. Keith relates that one night 
high efficiency, that this wholesome fruit of the 
torrid zone can now be purchased cheaply the 
year round in every city, town and village in the 
United States. The banana is grown in the humid 
lowlands. The great plantations of the United 
Fruit Company have been cleared from dark and 
dripping jungle; problems of sanitation similar 
to those encountered in building the Panama 
Canal have been met and solved; railroads have 
been laid across morasses; towns and cities have 
risen where before there were a few palm-leaf huts 
of squalid Indians. 
It was in clearing a great banana plantation at 
Mercedes that the remains of a prehistoric city 
were found. Mr. Keith at his own expense, car- 
ried on excavations for several years at this site, 
and his interest increasing with the finds, he 
extended the archzological survey to cover other 
parts of Costa Rica. Thus it happens that there 
is opened to the scientific world, results of explora- 
tion in the humid lowland areas of Central 
America to add to the results previously gained 
from the more easily explored arid districts. 
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