"It wasn't excavated until this year, however, and is now revealing its full structure and rich furnishings. It contains numerous funerary offerings of fine ceramics and decorated gold ornaments including earrings, bracelets and large pectorals decorated with bats and crocodiles which were typical motifs in the art and iconography of El Cano. It is a multiple burial featuring a central figure accompanied by several other individuals."
"The grave is an area reserved for the elites of the Cocle culture, and the central burial is someone of high status from one of the families of leaders or chiefs. Cocle leaders accumulated items of great prestige, but the gold in the tombs was not valued as specie or currency. It held religious symbolism as an eternal material because of its beauty is not subject to corrosion or decomposition."
"The archaeological site of El Cano, 124 miles southwest of Panama City, was a ceremonial complex of the Cocle people. Previous discoveries of opulent burials have led to the area being dubbed Panama's Valley of the Kings, and the vast majority of the necropolis has yet to be excavated. The evidence accumulated in Tomb 3 allows for a revision of models regarding the emergence of complex chiefdoms in the isthmus, suggesting the existence of centralized societies that operated between the 8th and 11th centuries AD."
An elite multiple burial (Tomb 3) at El Cano dates to 800–1000 A.D. and contains abundant funerary offerings of fine ceramics and decorated gold ornaments, including earrings, bracelets and large pectorals adorned with bats and crocodiles. The tomb was identified by survey in 2009 but excavated recently, revealing full structure and rich furnishings. The burial area served Coclé elites, with a central high-status individual accompanied by others. Gold functioned as religious symbolism rather than currency, prized for its imperishable beauty. El Cano, 124 miles southwest of Panama City, functioned as a ceremonial complex whose opulent burials suggest centralized societies capable of long-distance exchange and large-scale ceremonies.
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