You’re probably imagining older men in sagging khaki pants combing the sand on the nearest beach looking for out of place rooms and wedding bands. You imagine their metal detectors beeping like possessed crows as they then kneel down and dig up what can be appropriately described as a confusing can. In Panama, however, treasure hunters are faced with something much more impressive.
Pre-Columbian artifacts, whether they are textiles, ceramics, metal, bone, leather, and stone objects, are considered illegal if they are owned by someone in Panama other than the government or government officials. Certain national stolen property laws require that anything, if found, be turned over to the government. However, there are thousands and thousands of pieces floating in Panama, owned simply by people like you and me. They are treasures, illegal treasures at that, that are as scary to hunt as they are to keep.
In the inland provinces of Panama, such as Coclé and Veraguas, there are people who can help you find these artifacts, but the process is far from a metal detector on the beach. It basically consists of asking enough questions until you find a local who is willing, even for a few hundred dollars, to personally take you on the hunt. You will spend your nights perched in tents in the dense jungles of Panama trudging through rough bushes and thorny bushes as no path has been cut on this hunt.
Eventually you will come to a point where your guide will recommend that you sit down and wait for dark. Once darkness sets, you are taught to watch out for a variety of signals, primarily lights that are fired from the ground. Lights shooting from the ground?
This is because what you are essentially looking for are graves. If you didn’t know, this trip you’re on is a grave robbery tour – a journey to find ancient pre-Columbian burial sites loaded, and those in which methane gas from millennial bodies still rises through the earth and the atmosphere. This gas can only be seen at night and produces a subtle, detectable glow that marks the spot.
These civilizations, similar to the Egyptians, buried their people with relics in an effort to ward off evil spirits or, now that I think about it, people like you. You and your guide dig, being careful not to smash your shovel through the ribs of any ancient skeletons. This practice is highly illegal, extremely unethical, and not a typical tourist attraction. Basically, you are in an effort to get a little gold statue to be placed on your mantle, unearthing dead Indians and stealing their things. This probably implies some kind of spirits messing with you like they should.
The sad part is that the Panamanian government has yet to take this seriously and has preserved these graves. They haven’t done much research on their own or, which could be cool, they dug up the remains and created a giant museum for the whole world to see. So for the moment, the invitation is open to people like you. To delve deep into the center of Panama’s jungle and rob some tombs, all in the name of art.
