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"Golden Chief" Tomb Treasure Yields Clues to Unnamed Civilization
National Geographic News ^ | December 21, 2011 | James Owen

Posted on 12/26/2011 6:35:46 PM PST by SunkenCiv

"Spectacular find" includes gold, jewels, and a small army of likely sacrifices.

Newfound tombs in Central America are yielding thousand-year-old gold, gems, and even hints of murder by pufferfish. But the real treasure is the excavation's clues to the unnamed civilization of the so-called golden chiefs of Panama, archaeologists say.

"It's really a very spectacular find. ... probably the most significant" for this culture since the 1930s, when the nearby Sitio Conte site, also in central Panama, yielded a wealth of gold artifacts, anthropologist John Hoopes said.

Until now, Sitio Conte provided the only major evidence of the golden-chiefs culture, which can be traced from about A.D. 250 to the 16th century, when Spanish conquerors arrived on the scene.

Dating to between A.D. 700 and 1000, the new artifacts were excavated about two miles (three kilometers) from Sitio Conte, at a site called El Caño.

Striking Gold, Second Time Around

El Caño's field of stone monoliths and sculptures had drawn treasure seekers in the early 20th century, but as luck would have it, they dug up only artifact-poor graves of common people.

A few years ago, after having worked at Sitio Conte -- also marked by ancient monoliths -- archaeologist Julia Mayo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute decided to reinvestigate El Caño.

Mayo's ground surveys, beginning in 2005, traced the circular outline of a series of burials, about 260 feet (80 meters) wide.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: elcano; elcanyo; godsgravesglyphs; gold; goldenchiefs; goldenchiefsculture; panama; seahorse; sitioconte
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To: SunkenCiv; bunkerhill7
Are those beads of that blue jade found in Central America?

If so, any of that found in a Viking site might tie back to the area, and substantiate bunkerhill7's idea of contact.

21 posted on 12/27/2011 4:55:52 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: bunkerhill7

I was about to post the same thing. That same image was posted here about some site found in Minnesota(?) or Canada a few years ago.


22 posted on 12/27/2011 5:01:48 AM PST by Safetgiver (I'd rather die under a free American sky than live under a Socialist regime.)
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To: bunkerhill7

On the other hand, it looks like a southwestern avanyu, the water serpent; or a southeastern uktena, a water serpent or dragon that is the yang to thunder bird’s yin; or it could be akin to the “underwater panther” of eastern indians, the part bird/deer/wildcat/snake/human piasas of the midwest which Indians apparently used to warn dugout river traffic of nearby whirlpools on the Mississippi, or the amphibaemas the Spiro mounds people of Oklahoma carved on their conch shell cups which were sometimes depicted as two snakelike creatures intertwined in a kind of figure 8 knot ; they usually had big elaborate tongues. There’s about as much resemblance to a viking ship as there is to a Chinese dragon boat. Seems that the dragon motif is an independent and widespread thing that in people living wherever there is turbulent water.


23 posted on 12/27/2011 5:38:32 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: SunkenCiv

The figure in the photo on the right has Obama’s ears...


24 posted on 12/27/2011 5:43:17 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
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To: SunkenCiv

bttt


25 posted on 12/27/2011 10:48:15 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: gleeaikin; SunkenCiv
the find in the US state of George that SC posted recently.

This article is fascinating (and great photos!) but I cringed a bit when I read this reference to the hoax Georgia Mayan article. SunkenCiv, if you did post that article, could you clarify that you don't now stand behind it, and it's bunk?
26 posted on 12/27/2011 11:55:19 AM PST by aNYCguy
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To: SunkenCiv

If the pic of the guy is anything to go by, I bet they came from Klendathu.


27 posted on 12/27/2011 12:04:02 PM PST by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: SunkenCiv

Lovely statue. Knives in both hands. What is it about Meso-American tribes? All bloody sacrifice and genocide.


28 posted on 12/27/2011 12:42:01 PM PST by pabianice (")
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To: reaganaut

I love the smell of lamanite in the morning!


29 posted on 12/27/2011 1:19:38 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: bunkerhill7
The figure on the right appears to be a viking ship replete with shields and mast.

You are absolutely CORRECT!!

However; the figure on the LEFT has what looks like a golden rooster on the right side of it.

Replete with pointy teeth!

30 posted on 12/27/2011 1:23:06 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: bunkerhill7
The figure on the right appears to be a viking ship replete with shields and mast.

You are absolutely CORRECT!!

However; the figure on the LEFT has what looks like a golden rooster on the right side of it.

Replete with pointy teeth!

31 posted on 12/27/2011 1:23:26 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: pabianice
What is it about Meso-American tribes? All bloody sacrifice and genocide.

Well; MORMONism claims that some sins are NOT covered by Christ's blood and only the blood of the SINNER can atone for them.

32 posted on 12/27/2011 1:27:22 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: pabianice
What is it about Meso-American tribes?

I'm sure we'll find out when their calendar runs out...

33 posted on 12/27/2011 1:28:17 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: bunkerhill7








34 posted on 12/27/2011 1:31:43 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going)
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To: aNYCguy

No, but thanks for stalking me. What’s next, a show trial?


35 posted on 12/27/2011 8:07:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! May 2013 be even Happier!)
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To: Smokin' Joe

The Vikings were in North America, of that there is no reasonable doubt — although there was some touch-hole around here who argued against the Viking site at L’Anse aux Meadows by just digging in his or her little feet and gainsaying it, like Monty Python’s Argument Clinic. Despite the supposed evidence to the contrary, the Newport Round Tower is probably also PreColumbian. The climate turned on the Vikings, which cut into their population explosion, and they were left behind in the navigation and ship construction developments that swept Europe for various reasons. Even though there was at one time a Roman Catholic Bishop of Vinland, the Viking colonization ultimately failed, leaving us with, perhaps, Maine Coon Cats and some rune-inscribed stones.


36 posted on 12/27/2011 8:21:56 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! May 2013 be even Happier!)
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To: no-to-illegals

They’d have had to trade for it; the only thing the Vikings *may* have brought back that shows up in durable records is the turkey, and that was available in N America.


37 posted on 12/27/2011 8:27:08 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! May 2013 be even Happier!)
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To: SunkenCiv
I believe that the travels of ancient civilizations, even those in the more dim parts of documented history, were more extensive than most imagine. The runestones in Minnesota and the carvings at Writing Rock in North Dakota hint at much yet to be discovered.

I also wonder at the possibilities that the remains of other great civilizations lie well under water on the Continental Shelves, and bulldozed beneath the moraines and buried in outwash plains of the last ice age.

The puzzle is coming together, but there are a lot of pieces yet to be found.

38 posted on 12/28/2011 1:48:08 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: SunkenCiv
Stalking? Eh? Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers, champ.

I've enjoyed your postings in the past, and this tomb article was no exception. I thought you might be interested in knowing, just in case you didn't already, that there has never been a Mayan presence in Georgia, and that the Examiner article that set the internet aflame is wild speculation written by a kook who wants desperately to believe that "like all Georgians, [he] carries traces of Mayan blood," despite what the experts think.

Anyways, carry on. Don't expect a summons to a show trial anytime soon.
39 posted on 12/28/2011 1:44:02 PM PST by aNYCguy
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To: Smokin' Joe

Letter from Newfoundland: Homing in on the Red Paint People
by Angela M.H. Schuster
Volume 53 Number 3, May/June 2000
http://www.archaeology.org/0005/abstracts/letter.html

Red Paint People: A Lost American Culture
by Bruce Bourque
Because of their greater antiquity than the Mound Builders, and the prejudice in his time against any human presence in the Americas prior to 3000 years ago, this archaeologist was ruined and ridiculed in the usual unscholarly way characteristic of the academic world.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1593730381/sunkencivilizati

Camden tool could be 5,000 years old
By Lynda Clancy
Oct 12, 2005
http://knox.villagesoup.com/community/story.cfm?storyID=62109

Red ochre burials: Greater Nicoya and elsewhere
By Frederick W. Lange*
Guanacast Journal, Costa Rica
http://journalcr.com/news_article.php?edition=110&article=2339
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2103322/posts

Archaeologists discover ancient ivory maskette on Canadian Arctic island
Submitted by owenjarus on Thu, 07/08/2010
Recent research, conducted by Dr. Patricia Sutherland, suggests that the Dorset even developed a trading relationship with the Norse who appeared in the Arctic around AD 1000.
http://heritage-key.com/blogs/owenjarus/archaeologists-discover-ancient-ivory-maskette-canadian-arctic-island


40 posted on 12/28/2011 8:42:56 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! May 2013 be even Happier!)
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