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The Brooklyn Museum

Collections: Arts of the Americas




Embossed Plaque

Embossed Plaque. Sitio Conte, Panama. Coclé artist, 700–900. Hammered gold, 9 x 8 1/2 in. (22.9 x 21.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 33.448.12

Among pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico and Central and South America, gold was associated with the life-renewing properties of the sun and therefore had sacred and supernatural powers. In ancient Panama, gold ornaments were usually reserved for elite members of society who possessed both political and supernatural powers, because chiefs were surely also priests or shamans. According to early Spanish sources, Panamanian chiefs wore gold ornaments to war as well as to the grave. This large plaque, embossed with a design of a crocodilian deity, probably pays tribute to a sacred ancestor with whom ancient Panamanian chiefs and other high-ranking individuals identified.

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