Panamá la Vieja

Iglesia y Convento de las Monjas de la Concepción

Panamá la Vieja (also called Panamá Viejo ) is the ruined city of the oldest Spanish city founding on the Pacific coast east of today's city of Panama City . The settlement was founded a few years after Vasco Núñez de Balboa discovered the Pacific in the early 16th century. It quickly developed into the most important port city, which formed the basis of the Spanish Conquista of the Inca Empire. From Panama there was a land connection ( camino real ) to Portobelo or Nombre de Dios on the Caribbean coast via the Isthmus of Panama . In 1671 the city was destroyed by the attack by Henry Morgan and then relocated to what is now the city area with its new core, Casco viejo .

Attractions

Ruins of the Nuestra Señora de la Asunción Cathedral

The ruins of numerous stone buildings of the Spanish colonial city from the 16th and 17th centuries can be seen in the ruins. The cathedral Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in the former plaza of the city and numerous monasteries are noteworthy . The ruin tableau is said to reflect the layout of the settlement around 1541. The city did not have a city wall or other noteworthy fortifications, although a small bastion has been preserved on the western bridge. The Casas reales , the mass of smaller houses, were only seen with a simple wood-earth construction, so these areas are free today. The camino real left the city over a bridge to the north. The ruins have been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003 . There is a museum near the ruins that provides extensive information on the history of the city.

archeology

The ruins attracted the attention of American researchers early on. Initially, however, the focus was on the pre-Columbian phases of settlement. The Patronato Panama Viejo Foundation has been tasked with maintaining and researching the site since the 1990s . In recent years, German archaeologists from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen have taken part in the research under the direction of Barbara Scholkmann and Rainer Schreg .

literature

• Barbara Scholkmann / Rainer Schreg (eds.): A step to a global world. Historical archeology in Panamá. German researches on the first Spanish city on the Pacific Ocean , BAR Publishing, Oxford 2015 (BAR International Series, Volume 2742), ISBN 1-4073-1401-7 .

Web links

Commons : Panamá Viejo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Panama la Vieja in an episode of the ZDF series Schliemanns Erben
• Website of the Patronato Panama Viejo Foundation (Spanish)
• Rainer Schreg, Urban Planning in the oldest European city on the Pacific coast: Investigations in Panamá la Vieja , Mitteilungsblatt 15 (2004) of the German Society for Archeology of the Middle Ages and the Modern Era. V. (PDF, 145 kB)
• Rainer Schreg: Panamá la Vieja - the first European city on the Pacific. New research from the University of Tübingen

Individual evidence

1. ↑ B. Scholkmann / R. Schreg: Far from home in Spain. In: Arch. Germany. Volume 6, 6, 2005, pp. 14-18.

Coordinates: 9 ° 0 '23.8 "  N , 79 ° 29' 7.8"  W.