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Reviewed by:
  • Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia
  • Mary Helms
Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia. Edited by Jeffrey Quilter and John W. Hoopes. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2003. Pp. x, 429. Illustrations. Tables. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $30.00 cloth.

The gold and gold alloy ornaments of Pre-Columbian Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia have long intrigued scholarly investigators. Archaeologists, art historians, cultural anthropologists, ethnohistorians not only have identified styles and techniques [End Page 469] of manufacture, but also have explored operational aspects of the indigenous societies where precious metals were used in a variety of contexts. The general orientation of much of this work can be gleaned from the title of the collection of papers reviewed here. The eleven essays composing this volume emphasize the social, economic, political and ideological contexts of the distinctive gold and gold alloy jewelry that had become so ubiquitous that such jewelry serves as a horizon marker for the region from approximately AD 700 on. In so doing they provide a wealth of archaeological, ethnohistoric and ethnographic detail that makes the volume an important source book for understanding the prehistory of the Intermediate Area in general.

Following an Introduction by Jeffrey Quilter, Oscar Fonseca and John Hoopes review evidence for a common linguistic and genetic as well as cultural heritage for the region. Michael Snarskis considers basic social organization as it relates to the value accorded first jade and then gold in Costa Rican political-ideological life. Essays by Eugenia Ibarra and by Carl Langebaek also explore the broader place of gold in community life in general and in relation to social change. Richard Cooke and his associates and Warwick Bray consider gold in the contexts of exchange systems and of socio-political ranking and hierarchy as they explore who made and displayed gold in Panama and in northern Colombia, respectively. Patricia Fernández and Ifigenia Quintanilla continue the discussion of the role of metallurgy (and of stone sculpture) in fostering political and ideological power, legitimacy, and leadership with particular reference to the Diquís Delta of Costa Rica. The cosmological associations, symbolism, and qualitative values accorded to gold and gold objects are considered by many authors but are the particular focus of essays by Nicholas Saunders, who discusses the symbolism of the luminosity that metals display, Mark Miller Graham, who employs myth and iconography, and Ana María Falchetti, who relates physical properties of metals to a complex symbolic world that addresses the generation and transformation of life in supernatural terms that can be manipulated by the magical powers of metal.

All of the papers are of high quality and are nicely interrelated and cross-referenced. Much could be said about each essay, for all are detailed, finely nuanced, and insightful, but I would like to single out two papers for further brief comment because they go well beyond the symposium theme to offer insights and interpretations that would be of interest to a considerably wider audience. The first is Nicholas Saunders' consideration of how native peoples throughout the Americas (and elsewhere) attribute a spiritual "brilliance," inner sacredness, and supernatural power to a wide range of natural phenomena that can be perceived as having shiny surfaces. This shine or light becomes centrally related to conceptions of life and, given its material ubiquity in nature and in humanly crafted products, is seen to interrelate virtually all dimensions of the cosmos. The second is Ana María Falchetti's dazzling interpretation of symbolism in which the permanent shine of gold and the sun, the periodicity of the moon, associated with silver, and the transformative tarnishing of copper, as well as the human capacity for physically smelting [End Page 470] and combining these metals as alloys, are associated with cosmological gestation, the importance of "seeds" that contain germs of life, bees as agents of fertility, lost-wax casting techniques, body ornaments, systems of matrimonial exchange and long-distance trade, and votive offerings. All of these aspects attest to beliefs that metals' magical powers can ensure social survival and existential identity. Both of these papers offer exceptional glimpses into the tremendous complexity, intellectual...

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