[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/panama-tomb.webp?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tA newly exhumed tomb in central Panama has revealed stores of riches as well as signs of human sacrifice.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs reported by ZME Science<\/em>, scientists working at the 1,000-year-old burial chamber known at Tomb 3 in El Ca\u00f1o Archaeological Park found stashes of gold as well as remains of a central buried figure surrounded by others who were likely sacrificed. \u201cBesides the remains, the \u2018Lord of Tomb 3\u2019 lay swaddled in a fortune of gold, including massive gold pectorals, gold earrings, and intricate gold ornaments depicting crocodile teeth and bat wings,\u201d according to ZME<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe site located 120 miles southwest of Panama City was a necropolis for the Gran Cocl\u00e9 culture that thrived by way of \u201ca highly structured society run by powerful elites who commanded vast resources.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPer ZME<\/em>, \u201cBy the 8th century, the Gran Cocl\u00e9 built centralized political structures. Their leaders controlled trade, orchestrated massive ceremonies, and wielded enough power to demand that their status follow them into the afterlife. Today, archaeologists often refer to the El Ca\u00f1o site as Panama\u2019s Valley of the Kings.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to a press release issued by Panama\u2019s Ministry of Culture, \u201cThe El Ca\u00f1o site was a funerary enclosure (necropolis or city of the dead), which was built around 700 AD and abandoned around 1000 AD. In addition to the well-known monoliths, the enclosure contained a cemetery and a ceremonial area with wooden buildings.\u201d The tomb itself was built around the year 750 and \u201cis that of a great lord, but also of other people who died to accompany him to the \u2018afterlife,\u2019\u201d according to Julia Mayo, director of the El Ca\u00f1o Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/panama-tomb-riches-sacrifice-1234776467\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/panama-tomb.webp?w=1024″] A newly exhumed tomb in central Panama has revealed stores of riches as well as signs of human sacrifice. As reported by ZME Science, scientists working at the 1,000-year-old burial chamber known at Tomb 3 in El Ca\u00f1o Archaeological Park found stashes of gold as well as remains of a central buried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1819250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1819250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1819250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1819250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1819250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}