Gilcrease to show gold artifacts from Panama

[Judi Lynn]

Gilcrease to show gold artifacts from Panama

By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
Published: 6/19/2011 1:58 AM
Last Modified: 6/19/2011 2:57 AM

Entering the Gilcrease Museum galleries that house "To Capture the Sun: Gold of Ancient Panama" is to walk into the middle of a mystery.

The exhibit is made up of more than 200 objects from the Gilcrease collection, augmented by large format photographs of the regions in Panama from where they originally came and life-sized mannequins adorned with reproductions of some gold items on display.

It is the first time such an extensive amount of these items have been put on public display since museum founder Thomas Gilcrease acquired the collection in the 1940s.

What makes this show have a bit of mystery to it, said Gilcrease director of exhibitions and publications Randy Ramer, is the fact that - in some ways - the ancient cultures of Panama are among the least studied and least understood of pre-Columbian civilizations.

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