MONOLITH FINDS IN PANAMA

Evening Star, Issue 19745, 21 December 1927, Page 12

MONOLITH FINDS IN PANAMA

According to discoveries made by A. Hyatt Verrill in the province of Code, in the Republic of Panama, as printed in the New York World,’ an unknown race of highly-developed culture existed there in the early dawn of civilisation. He has unearthed columns 15ft to 20ft high and from 18in to 30in square. In nearly every case these monoliths had been hand cut and tooled—some square, some octagonal or pentagonal, and others oval or cylindrical—as truly as though they had been turned in a lathe. Many were elaborately carved in has relief in involved and symbolic designs. Mr Verrill thinks these are inscriptions readily decipherable to their designers hut meaningless to us. Traces of coloring are faintly discernible, which lead Mr Verrill to think that originally they were gaily painted in red and yellow similar to many of tho Mayan monuments. The condition of these monuments prove their great age. The stone from which they were made must have come out of the quarry on the farther side of the Broad River. To have cut the stone from a solid rock and transported it must have been, ho says, an almost superhuman feat. Mr Verrill unearthed what was evidently the site of a temple, containing more than 1,000 idols. Some wore of human figures; others of animals, two of them being of elephants. Several were of Siamese twins, __ back to back. The frequency of this figure, as weil of a hunchback dwarf with a masked face, makes it probable, in Mr Verrill’s opinion, that these freaks were regarded as supernatural or divine, or that at some period the peoples had rulers who were' thus malformed. In nearly every instance the idols appeared with face to the east.