THE COLLECTIONS. 



The Chiriquian antiquities belonging to Yale University number several thousand 

 specimens. The choicest of these were collected from 1859-1866 by M. A. de 

 Zeltner, 1 French Consul at Panama, whose good fortune it was to be living there 

 at the time of the first discoveries. The major part of the collection, however, 

 was made by Mr. J. A. McNiel a few years later. The de Zeltner collection was 

 bought in 1872, after it had been shipped to Paris and a part of it already for- 

 warded to Heidelberg, where de Zeltner was soon to go as his country's repre- 

 sentative in the consular service. The purchase was made by Professor Othniel 

 C. Marsh, who also bought the McNiel collection in 1878. These collections 

 include gold objects, stone implements, metates, stools of stone and earthenware, 

 and a series of pottery representing various kinds of ware and unsurpassed in the 

 number of its rare and valuable specimens. 



These treasures have been in storage for about thirty years, there being no 

 facilities for their exhibition, and only recently have they been accessible for pur- 

 poses of study. They form the central feature of one of the three principal col- 

 lections given to the University by Professor Marsh in 1898, viz., the " Collection 

 of American Archeology and Ethnology." 2 



Of the priority of stone art over ceramic art, there can be no question, and it 

 is also generally admitted that the manufacture of pottery antedates a knowledge 

 of the use of metals. In discussing the three classes of artifacts, therefore, it has 

 been thought best to follow the foregoing sequence, although no attempt is here 

 made to fix the relative age of individual specimens, which would presuppose a 

 much more thorough knowledge of the various types of Chiriquian graves, as well 

 as of the character of their contents and that of the surrounding soil. It may 

 be worth while, however, to call attention to certain phylogenetic relations which 

 are traceable, not only through the various groups of a given class, but which also 

 bind the product of the stone worker to that of the potter and the artificer in metal. 



That these phylogenetic ties lie between stone and pottery on the one hand 

 and pottery and metal objects on the other, rather than between stone on the 

 one hand and metal on the other, is significant as bearing on the general phylo- 

 genetic trend in the development of Chiriquian art as a whole. The subject 

 will be discussed further in describing the various specimens in the three classes 

 that best illustrate the influence of technique in one medium over that in another. 

 It is also significant that these ties which bind the art of all three classes 

 together are centered in the group of unpainted pottery, called by Holmes " terra 

 cotta" or "biscuit" ware, a group which probably stands for an early stage in 

 the development of Isthmian ceramic art. The question of the relative ages of 

 the various groups of pottery will be taken up in more detail when treating of 

 the " biscuit " ware, or armadillo ware, as I prefer to call it. 



1 Note sur les sepultures indiennes du departement de Chiriqui (Etat de Panama), Panama, 1866. 



2 Yale alumni weekly, VII, Jan. 20, 1898. 



