- The Gold Museum in Bogota has the biggest collection of pre-Hispanic gold pieces in the world. It has over 55 000 pieces of incredible intricacy. The museum is divided into sections that represent the different cultures and their techniques that existed before the arrival of the Spaniards. These societies include the Tumaco, Nariño, Cauca, Calima, San Agustín, Tierradentro, Tolima, Quimbaya, Muisca, Urabá and Chocó, Malagana, Zenú, and Tairona.I found it quite interesting that so many peices had been found to put on display, seeing as how the Spaniards pretty much stole everything.
There was much to learn here and I have selected just a few of the many photographs I took, together with the information displayed. I was fortunate to have Camila bring me here. She has a great passion for Art and a good understanding of her own culture and history.
“Miners were respected specialists who were held in high esteem because they knew the secrets of the earth and how to extract metals form it. Goldsmiths also held a dual status, since they combined technical and supernatural knowledge in their work: many of them were religious and political leaders”.
“Metallurgy in the Peruvian Andes was noted for the emphasis that was placed on producing hammered objects. This technological preference was a cultural choice, and it did not depend on the properties of he metals or in ignorance of other techniques, for they knew about melting, which they performed before they took up hammering, The Andean tradition spread throughout the territory now known as Colombia, and particularly in hits south west region”.
One notable feature of pre-Hispanic Colombian gold work was the predominate role that was played by casting using the lost wax method. Goldsmiths were masters at shaping ornaments and containers in wax with their hands and then transforming them into metal.
The wax was obtained from beehives that housed bees with no sting, or “little angel bees”. Various species of these are found in Colombia, at height ranging from sea leer up to 3,400m particularly in rain forests.
The indians covered their dead with gold. These included elaborate masks as well as jewellery and other large pieces.
The shamans of numerous preset-day indigenous groups heal the sick by rhythmically stirring palm leaves, just as this person seems to be doing.
“Coca was used by chieftains and shamans to help them think and to renew and transmit sacred knowledge, because of the effect it had in activating powers of concentration, memory and speech”. This container is used to hold coca and the pin to press it in the back of the mouth and against the teeth. I saw the indians near The Lost City using similar shaped vessels made from a gourd.
“Chieftains, priests and shamans had the responsibility for guarding, transmitting and renewing cosmological representations, Endowed with special sensitivities and skills, they were subjected from childhood to lengthy learning processes about mythology, sacred plants, astronomy and ritual practices./ With their words, gestures and objects as tools, they did a symbolic job, one which transformed the world in order to guarantee not only the wellbeing of society but also that nature would reproduce herself, Alongside of the goldsmiths transformed metals into objects that had cultural meaning.”
“When the chieftain covered himself in gold, he appropriated the seminal, creative powers of the sun. He embodied on earth the powers of this deity from the upper world.”
“When the shaman was under the effects of plants that gave him power, he connected with various worlds. He journeyed through the middle, upper and lower worlds, linking all their beings”.
“Candidates for the priesthood were trained by wise men and elderly masters. They spent years locked up in temples and caves, where they never saw the light of day and were subjected to diets without salt or chilies and to many other restrictions.” I think this fella got forgotten about……
“Symmetry and balance in the shapes and designs of objects were an expression of the concern to find equilibrium in the properties and forces of the cosmos.”
“Birds symbolized the upper world. People, jaguars and deer personified the intermediated one, while the lower levels were represented by bats, caiman, snakes and other creatures which inhabited openings in the earth.
Priests and shamans who identified themselves with bats, evoked this animal’s habits in their won they lived in dark temples, worked at night and flew when they were in trances.