Protecting Panama	Volume 53 Number 4, July/August 2000
by Mark Rose

San Lorenzo Castle, Panama (World Monuments Fund) [LARGER IMAGE]

Panama's Instituto Nacional de Cultura has received an $80,000 grant from American Express for emergency preservation work and long-term management of San Lorenzo Castle and San Geronimo Fort, Spanish colonial strongholds on the Caribbean coast of Panama. Construction of San Lorenzo, which served as a depot for gold shipments to Spain, began in 1595. San Geronimo was an Italian-style fortress in the seventeenth century to which a long, low French-style battery was added in the mid-eighteenth century. Both are on UNESCO's World Heritage List and the List of 100 Most Endangered Sites compiled by the World Monuments Fund.

© 2000 by the Archaeological Institute of America archive.archaeology.org/0007/newsbriefs/panama.html