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The lands between Mesoamerica and the Central Andes are famed for the rich diversity of ancient cultures that inhabited them. Throughout this vast region, from about AD 700 until the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion, a rich and varied tradition of goldworking was practiced. The amount of gold produced and worn by native inhabitants was so great that Columbus dubbed the last New World shores he sailed as Costa Rica—the "Rich Coast."
Despite the long-recognized importance of the region in its contribution to Pre-Columbian culture, very few books are readily available, especially in English, on these lands of gold. Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia now fills that gap with eleven articles by leading scholars in the field. Issues of culture change, the nature of chiefdom societies, long-distance trade and transport, ideologies of value, and the technologies of goldworking are covered in these essays as are the role of metals as expressions and materializations of spiritual, political, and economic power. These topics are accompanied by new information on the role of stone statuary and lapidary work, craft and trade specialization, and many more topics, including a reevaluation of the concept of the "Intermediate Area."
Collectively, the volume provides a new perspective on the prehistory of these lands and includes articles by Latin American scholars whose writings have rarely been published in English.
Jeffrey Quilter "Introduction: The Golden Bridge of the Daríen"
Nicholas J. Saunders , " "Catching the Light": Technologies of Power and Enchantment in Pre-Columbian Goldworking"
John W. Hoopes and Oscar M. Fonseca Z., "Goldwork and Chibchan Identity: Endogenous Change and Diffuse Unity in the Isthmo-Colombian Area"
Richard Cooke, Ilean Isaza, John Griggs, Benoit Desjardins, and Luís Alberto Sánchez, "Who Crafted, Exchanged, and Displayed Gold in Pre-Columbian Panama?"
Michael J. Snarskis, "From Jade to Gold in Costa Rica: How, Why, and When"
Patricia Fernández and Ifigenia Quintanilla, "Metallurgy, Balls, and Stone Statuary in the Diquís Delta, Costa Rica: Local Production of Power Symbols"
Carl Henrik Langebaek, "The Political Economy of Pre-Columbian Gold Work: Four Examples from Northern South America"
Mark Miller Graham, "Creation Imagery in the Goldwork of Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia"
Warwick Bray, "Gold, Stone, and Ideology: Symbols of Power in the Tairona Tradition of Northern Colombia"
Ana María Falchetti, "The Seed of Life: The Symbolic Power of Gold-Copper Alloys and Metallurgical Transformations"
Eugenia Ibarra, "Gold in the Everyday Lives of Indigenous Peoples of Sixteenth-Century Southern Central America"
Overview
The lands between Mesoamerica and the Central Andes are famed for the rich diversity of ancient cultures that inhabited them. Throughout this vast region, from about AD 700 until the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion, a rich and varied tradition of goldworking was practiced. The amount of gold produced and worn by native inhabitants was so great that Columbus dubbed the last New World shores he sailed as Costa Rica—the "Rich Coast."
Despite the long-recognized importance of the...