Klangplatten- Tropical gorget cache.

[clovisoid]

Klangplatten is a funny word, but I noticed CMD's post about the Kogi and it reminded me of this old find. If you haven't watched the video, I highly recommend it.
German archaeologists were the first to type a lot of the Tairona artifacts, and one of their diagnostic artifacts are very delicate, thin plates of stone. The Germans thought they were part of a xylophone, and named them "klangplatten" for the little metal slats on a xylophone. No one really knows what they were used for, but the name stuck.
These were found about 200 miles from where the Kogi live, and were found stacked. You can see the change in patina where they were stacked on the large piece.

[kansas]

Wow those are truly amazing. Thats paper thin. Wow.thanks for posting that.
Travis

[rmartin]

Quite interesting Joshua. I really appreciate what you bring to this forum. Were these found associated with any other artifacts?

[clovisoid]

Ray,
The site is a high altitude desert, with a lot of wind erosion.  It was just a medium size village site, lots of pottery, beads, bone, etc. 
Here is a different shot that shows the curve/twist that these pieces have.  In Costa Rica Spanish missionaries saw the natives cutting jade with strings and sand, the groups in Northern Andes probably used a similar method.

  Here are a paid of bone nose ornaments.


Bone needle.

Joshua

[CMD]

Amazing artifacts. It's funny, Josh, but when I posted the Kogi video, the thought ran through my head that "Josh will know a lot about this Tairona stuff." LOL.  I have a tiny effigy bead around here somewhere that's Tairona. The plates are simply amazing.
I just posted a 2 minute excerpt of the Kogi video, to entice people to watch it