Old Panama

[Capn Bob]

Found an official site of Panama Viejo, or Old Panama...sadly, it's all in Spanish, but there's lots of pictures and photos, including finds from excavations in the city. These are the goodies that Morgan and the boys would have seen and handled whikle they stayed in town as...guests.

http://panamaviejo.org/catalogotags/index.php?q=coleccion

And the home page of the site: http://www.panamaviejo.org/

I've often had the idle notion of gathering together a few like minded fellows and recreating Morgan's March, from Ft. San Lorenzo, along the Chagres, to Panama Viejo, Then I decided to take a look to see what impact the Canal might have had on such a route. Let's just say my knowledge of the geography of the region was a few years...decades...centuries...out of date.

Edited June 13, 2011 by Capn Bob

[jendobyns]

Found an official site of Panama Viejo, or Old Panama...sadly, it's all in Spanish, but there's lots of pictures and photos, including finds from excavations in the city. These are the goodies that Morgan and the boys would have seen and handled whikle they stayed in town as...guests.

http://panamaviejo.o...php?q=coleccion

And the home page of the site: http://www.panamaviejo.org/

I've often had the idle notion of gathering together a few like minded fellows and recreating Morgan's March, from Ft. San Lorenzo, along the Chagres, to Panama Viejo, Then I decided to take a look to see what impact the Canal might have had on such a route. Let's just say my knowledge of the geography of the region was a few years...decades...centuries...out of date.

Very cool stuff! Thank you for that! Loving the majolica pottery

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

Check out those small kitchen knives (pequenas cuchillas) and the forged iron snipe hinge! (bisagra de hierro forjado) Very nice indeed. Thanks.

Bo

[PoD]

Check out those small kitchen knives (pequenas cuchillas) and the forged iron snipe hinge! (bisagra de hierro forjado) Very nice indeed. Thanks.

Bo

They are knives that were used for surgery rather than kitchen knives according to Bing translation sortware (how good this is I have no idea)

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

I checked my Websters Spanish/English dictionary in case my memory was wrong, but it says cuchillas are kitchen knives. Pequena (I can't do a tilde on the 'n') is small or little. I should review my Sapnish from high school, seems I retained more than I thought.

Bo

[Mission]

I'd guess many of these knives are for butchering or cooking. (Using my bits of Spanish larnin', pequeñas means 'small' in reference to a female object. Cuchilla (a female noun) is probably used here as a generic term for knives.)

I suspect, like many archeological digs, these things are very broadly classified by function and may not necessarily all go together. Note, that black and white thing at the bottom is a rule. The markings are probably in cm, which would make those knives around 4" - 5" long by my estimation. Based on that and the shape of the cleavers, I'd guess they were for food preparation. (I have never seen a cleaver listed as a surgical instrument in the etchings I have from surgical manuals and can't imagine what it would be used for except digit amputation. Since I have a very graphic representation of a chisel being used for this purpose, I'd go with kitchen cleavers for them.)

The curved knife might be a surgeon's scalpel. I don't know if there is a similar knife used in butchering, but the blade is most likely sharpened on the inside of the curve, based on the shape and wear evident from this (tiny) photo. However, the blade is awfully long for a scalpel (a precision instrument) and reminds me more of a amputation knife - except it's far too small for that. If the black and white rule at the bottom were in inches (which would make no sense since metrics is the official unit of measurement in Panama), then I would definitely classify it as an amputation knife. However, then the word 'pequeñas' would make no sense as the thing would be about 12" long.

[Capn Bob]

That curved knive in question...I can't tell ye what it is, but it doesn't strike me as an amputation blade...seems much too thin for that, unless used for digits.

And I would not want to be a bloke what had his finger(s) chiselled off...

I'd guess many of these knives are for butchering or cooking. (Using my bits of Spanish larnin', pequeñas means 'small' in reference to a female object. Cuchilla (a female noun) is probably used here as a generic term for knives.)

I suspect, like many archeological digs, these things are very broadly classified by function and may not necessarily all go together. Note, that black and white thing at the bottom is a rule. The markings are probably in cm, which would make those knives around 4" - 5" long by my estimation. Based on that and the shape of the cleavers, I'd guess they were for food preparation. (I have never seen a cleaver listed as a surgical instrument in the etchings I have from surgical manuals and can't imagine what it would be used for except digit amputation. Since I have a very graphic representation of a chisel being used for this purpose, I'd go with kitchen cleavers for them.)

The curved knife might be a surgeon's scalpel. I don't know if there is a similar knife used in butchering, but the blade is most likely sharpened on the inside of the curve, based on the shape and wear evident from this (tiny) photo. However, the blade is awfully long for a scalpel (a precision instrument) and reminds me more of a amputation knife - except it's far too small for that. If the black and white rule at the bottom were in inches (which would make no sense since metrics is the official unit of measurement in Panama), then I would definitely classify it as an amputation knife. However, then the word 'pequeñas' would make no sense as the thing would be about 12" long.

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

The curved one is most likely a scraper used for taking fat off the hides of hogs for rendering into lard. When doing butchering today, we use one like that for scraping hog fat, and others like it for scraping the bones for grinding that meat into burger or sausage. Not sure how much meat grinding was done at that time and place, but rendering fat into lard was a definite possibility.

Bo

[Mission]

I'd have to say Bo's got it right, then. It is the wrong shape for one surgical instrument and the wrong size for the other. One of the definitions for cuchilla is generic ('blade') and the other is very specific (large knife; cleaver) according to my The New World Span/Eng and Eng/Span dictionary.

I seem to have mis-remembered the finger amputation woodcut from Woodall. I know chisels were used and he shows them surrounding the finger, but his image is actually of a pair of cutters:

[jendobyns]

I'd have to say Bo's got it right, then. It is the wrong shape for one surgical instrument and the wrong size for the other. One of the definitions for cuchilla is generic ('blade') and the other is very specific (large knife; cleaver) according to my The New World Span/Eng and Eng/Span dictionary.

I seem to have mis-remembered the finger amputation woodcut from Woodall. I know chisels were used and he shows them surrounding the finger, but his image is actually of a pair of cutters:

Hey Mission, you could always substitute sugar nippers if you can't find one of those for your collection

[Mission]

Hey Mission, you could always substitute sugar nippers if you can't find one of those for your collection

Actually, thanks to that description, I figured out that those are just blacksmiths nippers and they're quite easy to find on eBay for cheap. Another surgical tool acquired.

[Capn Bob]

I'd have to say that makes good sea sense. As a side note, in the field of flintknapping, we've got something called an "end-scraper" for cleaning up the yuck from hides...given their size, it must have taken some time.

Additional side note: It's hard to type when ye got a cat on ye lap...

The curved one is most likely a scraper used for taking fat off the hides of hogs for rendering into lard. When doing butchering today, we use one like that for scraping hog fat, and others like it for scraping the bones for grinding that meat into burger or sausage. Not sure how much meat grinding was done at that time and place, but rendering fat into lard was a definite possibility.

Bo

[PoD]

I checked my Websters Spanish/English dictionary in case my memory was wrong, but it says cuchillas are kitchen knives. Pequena (I can't do a tilde on the 'n') is small or little. I should review my Sapnish from high school, seems I retained more than I thought.

Bo

ha ha I should have known not to trust anything by made by microsoft