Evening Star Newspaper, September 8, 1929, Page 91

THF SU Nl)\\' T,\R \\ \\|IIN(I()N D. C QIIJ.\IHR 8 1929, 2 S Uflcowrmg an Ancient Pompeii in America Sun-Worshiper’s Temple of a Thousand 1dols Laid Bare in Panama, Where Scientists ])ig Up Evidence of a Culture Buried by “olcanic Lava Long Before Maya or Dnca I)ays. BY 1. HYATT VERRILL. WONDERFUL people once lived b2~ tween the Pacific Coast and the mountains in Panama, some 4,000 years ago, to judge from the ruins which I have been uncovering '.hf‘l'P during the last five years. At first glunce this seems a most unlikely place for human beings to have lived, for today it is sterile, wholly unfit for agriculture, a waste, almost a wilderness. Yet, when we dug down beneath the surface, we found convincing evidence that these plains, cut by rivers and brooks, once teemed with a population that had made notable advances in all the arts which we assoclate with civili- zation. The explanation of the wiping out of cities, temples and palaces lies in the mass of vol- canic ash covering everything, traceable directly to the towering volcano of Guacamayo, still grumbling and muttering within its fiery depths. Steam and hot water are cast forth from time to time from its fumeroles, giving evidence of the far greater convulsions which onced rocked that district, bringing death and destruction to a great people, just as Vesuvius came down in its wrath upon Herculaneum and Pompeii. THAT a vast population once lived there is proved by the immense number of burials, the extensive villages and cities, the stone monuments and pottery, all of which indicate a highly cuiiured people that must have lived there during many centuries, long before th2 Mayas or early pre-Incans. these are the remains of the most ancient race of Central or South America. The age at which these people lived is calculated by the depth of deposit of soil since that culture ceased to exist, and the decomposition of stone- work, which requires many ages to take place. From 4 to 12 feet of soil have piled up since the abandonment of this plain, which must have required ages. It is known that no human beings lived there since Europeans reached the Wesiern World, so tRe very thin layer of mold covering the topmost potsherds is at least 400 years old. It seems fair to conclude that no less than 4,000 years were required to form the deposits now covering this civilization, which must have dvelapned for hundreds of years before that. The culture discovered beneath all this de- posit has becn called “Cocle,” from the modern name of the district and for lack of any other name, as no written inscriptions that can be read have been found, so this people inight well be called the “Great Unknown.,” Their remains’are scattered over an area of about 500 square miles, with villages, cities and temnles. ‘The great central shrine might well be called the “Temple of a Thousand Idols,” for this great prehistoric place of worship covers an area mnre th'n a hundred acres in extent, It seems as if lying between two of the larger rivers of the district. After clearing away the dense, thorny bush and the debris of ages, above which only the tops of the gigantic pillars first appeared, the plan of the temple bzcame plain. Running north, south, east and west are rows of im- mense, hand-cut stone monuments, or phallic columns, placed in an almost geometrically perfect quadrangle. In the northern row were 31 of these, spaced from 8 to 12 feet apart, extending due east and west. A hundred feet east of these, and the same distance south, were two immense basalt columns more than 15 feet tall and nearly 30 inches square. A hundred and fifty feet south of these, running due north and south, were 27 columns. Two hundred and fifty feet south of these, directly in line with them, were two more huge columns matching the two mentioned. Three hundred feet west of these was a semi-circular row of smaller columns, 25 in number. Three hun- dred feet north of these and 350 feet from the first row of ‘31 columns were 21 others run- ning north and south. The three rows of stone monuments, with the two corner groups, formed a quadrangle approximately 300 by 700 feet in area, an open court bounded by the great tooled phallic columns of hard basalt, many of them elabo- rately sculptured and painted in bright colors, some of the pigment being still visible. Many of the columns were 15 to 20 feet in length, from 16 to 30 inches square, tooled and cut to rectangular, pentagonal, octagonal, cylindrical or elliptical form and sometimes covered with symbolic sculptures and glyphs, apparently characters of their unknown tongue. These columns had been brought many miles from a quarry later discovered, showing that the prehistoric men were masters of some engineering skill to have transported them so far across rivers and plains, although they weighed tons. NNUMERABLE stone images were found scat- tered through the temple area. They were arranged like the columns, in regular rows, running north and south with the faces to the east. [East of the groups of 27 columns were two rows of these stone images. Six feet west of these columns was a second line of idols, chiefly of animal forms; 6 feet west of these, a row of idols of human form; 30 feet west of these, still another row of human figures, and 6 feet west of these, another row of animal figures. In the exact center of the area was a great stone column, nearly 20 feet tall, more than 2 feet square, wondrously carved. At its base were four stone figures—one a man, an- other a woman and child, another jaguar, the fourth a bird—probably symbolic of. the four points of the compass. All of the human figures are depicted without any clothing, but with elaborate hecaddresses. "of "sun worsh:ppt'rs. T his painting of an Inca ruler indicates the degree of luxury with which the . nobility of these early peoples mrround"d themselves. It is fair to assume that these people wore no clothing, although some spindle-weights found indicate that they knew how to spin and prob- ably how to weave. The carving of the idols illustrated a de- velopment of art which would show that cen- turies had passed between the first rude carving and the last masterpieces of art. One of the most astonishing of the idols bears a figure so strikingly and obviously elephantine that it cannot be explained away. Not only does’ the figure show a trunk, but it also has big, leaflike ears and the forward-bending knees characteristic of the elephants. There can be no doubt whatever that the people who built this temple and reached such heights of culture in Panama in prehistoric times had either seen elephants, domesticated some species of masto- don or were in frequent communication with the Orient. Vast quantities of pottery are found every- where. The graves are filled with it; masses of pottery surround every column and idol. In the pottery it is easy to trace the evolution of art and taste. The lowest—from 10 to 20 feet be- - neath the present surface—is crude, with little embellishment, decorated, if at all, with simple - incised designs or rudely modeled forms of ani- mals or human heads. Near the surface the pottery is of quality and beauty unexcelled in prehistoric American ceramic art. .. The beauty, coloring and motifs of Cocle pottery are the - mast surprising features of the culture. Some pieces look as if they might have come from - Mexico, others are strikingly similar to ex- amples from Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, but by far the greater portion are distinct in every way from anything hitherto known to arch- eologists. FROM the arrangement of the temple it is evident that they were sun-worshipers, and from the number and character of the. idols it " seems quite certain that they held many crea- _ tures sacred, revered certain human beings, had ' many dieties and believed in the plumed ser- - pent-ged. - The ceremonials of the Guaymi. In- . dians of Northern Panama seem to preserve - of the earth? many of thcir ideas. These IndGians have many small clay images in animal and human shape, ‘but they are not idols. They serve as proxies for those who cannot be present in person, far “good spirit creatures” and for kindly disposed deities. : Judging from the portrait pottery, these peo- * ple were tall, well formed and muscular. Their heads were of the round type, rather broad, _with artificially flattened craniums in some cases. Nowhere are found the heavy, beaklike nose of the Aztec and Mayan carvings or the strongly aquiline noses of the Incan and pre- Incan races. The nose is always well bridged, _straight or slightly-aquiline, and the nostrils are narrow. The eyes are full and straight, the lips ‘rather full and thick, the chin receding, the eyes set far apart. whether they are light or dark skinned, but “braided into elaborate form upon the head or *covered with a caplike, close-fitting, highly or- namental headdress. y What happened to this wonderful “that caused them to disappear from the face Why is it that nothing was "known ‘about them until our work began a few - years ago, uncovering their monuments and . graves? In view of the state of the country ‘the answer is very simple. There must have been a series of very severe earthquakes, accom- i panied by heavy volcanic eruptions which lit- -erally buried these thousands of people under ~tons of volcanic ash, tossing the stone columns and images about like pebbles, hurling frag- . ments of these monuments to considerable dis- . tances. In many eases the largest stone monu- ments are snapped off, the bases remaining . firmly fixed and upright, while the upper por- tions are thrown to one side or the middle por- tion farther away from the base than the top. In many instances the largest idols are found turned end-for-end, with the base of the ped- estal uppermost, while others have been broken and the heads of the figures are found a hun- .dred feet away from the bodies. Another convincing proof of the terrific earth convulsions is the fact that the stratum of -hard, tenacious clay on which the idols have been. set up was lifted and moved so that it :presented a wavelike surface. ‘IN several places. the layer of volcanic ash was more than 9 feet in thickness; obvi- “ously hot when deposited, for it had burned firmly onto the pottery. It is, therefore, reasonably. certain that the destruction of all this culture was the result of an eruption of Guacamayo Volcano, whick is barely 6 miles from the temple site. This eruption must have been accompanied by tre- ‘mendous earth tremors and upheavals. It is not difficult to imagine the terrorized people, who escaped from the first catastrophe, rush- ing madly from their razed homes to their tem- ple. There they tried to placate their gods hy -wholesale sacrifices and the mad destruction of their most prized possessions at the feet of their idols. Then utter despair must have fol- lowed as tremors shook the earth, the ground rose and fell, and the sacred monuments and lmues were broken and hurled from their n xs quite remarkable, and cannot be a mere coincidence, that the Asztecs’ legend or myth of the Toltecs contains an account of a violent volcanic eruption ‘near the .City of Tollan, which caused the Tollan rulers to order whole- sale sacrifices in order to placate their gods. Although similar eruptions have occurred, no doubt, and have destroyed prehistoric settle= .ments in many places, the ancient Nahua legend and the actual occurrence at Cocle ‘are remarkably similar. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility or reason that the story was .actually based upon the eruption of Cocle.: At ‘all events, it proves that a devastating erup= tion would have brought about-the wholesale sacrifices which we know occurred at Cocle. Possibly every membet of the.race was dee stroyed by the devastating heat, the poisonous gases and the blinding dust -emitted by the volcano. If some, igdeed, survived, they may have fled 'in their canoes on the nearby rivers, to carry the tradition of the disaster to later ‘generations. Those who escaped may have taken the memory of their culture with them. to scatter it among other peoples and perpe ate ¥ under modified fotmis i distdnt places (Copyright, 1929.)