38 



A STUDY OF CHIRIQUIAN ANTIQUITIES. 



hug the pillar. Figure 38 is in the same general class, the differences being 

 limited to minor details. Both these pieces are from Bugavita. One represents 

 a male, the other a female. 



There are three standing statues in the collection, one of which has the appear- 

 ance of being merely blocked out (fig. 39), although some striking character- 

 istics are already visible : the long nose, for instance, with the line of the bridge 



straight and continuous with the forehead ; the top of 

 the head, shaped like those of the clay figurines described 

 on page 165 ; the loin-cloth and the short legs bent a little 

 at the knee. The feet have not been cut apart. The 

 body is long. The arms are in relief, the right hand is 

 on the right breast and the left on the abdomen. This 

 piece is from San Carlos. 



Statues of the female sex predominate. The finest 

 of these (figs. 40 a and 406) was, according to the 

 finder from whom Professor Marsh bought it, " dug 

 up in Chiriqui in 1871," and appropriately named the 

 " Panama Venus." It undoubtedly does represent some 

 familiar goddess, as there is in the collection another 

 copy, not so elaborately finished, however, and less than 

 half as tall as the one reproduced. The latter is 78.5 

 centimeters in height and stands securely on its own 

 feet by virtue of their breadth and the projecting heels. 

 The toes are indicated and the malleoli, both median 

 and lateral, are prominent. The relatively short legs 

 are slightly flexed at the knee. The incised ornament 

 on the loin-cloth and the head-dress, the only articles of 

 apparel, resembles somewhat that on the borders of the 

 mealing stones already described. The body is round 

 dorsally and flat ventrally, the flatness being emphasized 

 by the square shoulders and stiff angular pose of the 

 arms and hands. The loin-cloth is also flattened in front 

 to be in keeping with the surfaces above. The neck, 

 on the other hand, is round in front and flattened behind. 



The hair, represented in relief, reaches to the shoulders, suggesting the same 

 style of treatment as seen in the clay figurines. The flatness of the crown of 

 the head may be intended as a feature of the head-dress only. The face is 

 pointed, the nose long and straight, and the mouth small. The two examples 

 of ''Panama Venus" in the Yale collection are both in a perfect state of preservation 

 and resemble each other much more closely than either does the one figured by 

 Holmes. All three however undoubtedly refer to the same personage. 



In 1860 Mr. Totten and Mr. Center, engineers of the Panama Railroad Company, 

 gave to the American Ethnological Society three stone statues of an unusual type, 

 described in the record of the meeting ' as " being about two feet high, cut from 



Fig. 39. Rough statue in stand- 

 ing posture; from San Carlos. '/' 



1 Hist, mag., IV, 144. 



