travel

Who made it and what does it mean?

The petroglyphs at El Valle are the best known and maybe the largest in Panama, but the various stories you get about their origins are speculative at best. Because there are some figures that look sort of like horses, one guess is that they date back to shortly after the Spaniards came and are a map of the area. However, there is evidence that the Chinese visited Panama decades before the Spaniards came, and they, too, would have brought horses with them and they are also known to have left curious inscriptions, including in Asian languages other than Chinese, in stones in other places.

The more bizarre explanations tie Panama to other great civilizations of the past, from ancient Egypt to the Vikings to the pre-Columbian empires of the Americas. The speculation can get wild and crazy because we really don't know how old these rock carvings are.

Photo by Eric Jackson