Made of hammered sheets of tumbaga (gold-copper alloy), the two house models seen here are extraordinary examples of the skill of ancient metalsmiths as well as the detail and accuracy with which they captured their world in portable objects. Community meeting houses of different cultural groups may be either round or rectangular; although they are different in shape, both forms can encapsulate the cosmos. The diagrams below show Tukano and Yakuna malocas (meeting houses).
This offering container is in the shape of a house that sits within an enclosure. It is guarded by two figures who form the corner posts of the enclosure. The small circular door leads to an interior divided into ritual spaces. Remarkably, this offering includes pieces of green glass, a product of European technology, alongside native emeralds. The person or persons who made this offering deliberately chose to incorporate new European materials into their traditional ritual practices.
This elaborate ceramic container and its contents (emerald beads, tumbaga nose ring, fish pendant, and tweezers) was once deposited in the ground as a complete offering. The container is in the shape of a communal house or temple, with gabled roof and steps at the entrance. The house’s shape also relates to the ocean, with eyes and the teeth of a shark, speaking to an intimate relationship with the primordial waters of creation.
As explained by Arhuaco elder Mamo Camilo Izquierdo, “In creation there are energies of all kinds; good, bad, neutral. Energetic power is to bring order.” Rulers and religious leaders (caciques) are responsible for managing interactions and relationships with the earth that sustains life, other people, plant and animal communities, weather phenomena, and supernatural beings. As such, the cacique sits at the very center of the universe, an axis of the Earth who maintains the balance of energies.
In the Early Quimbaya period, artists of the Middle Cauca Valley represented the human body in a sculptural and realistic manner. In later periods, representations moved towards more abstract bodies and figurative vessels. The semi-closed, slanted eyes of these figures are notable, and metal adornments were clearly of great importance and prevalence.
Between 400 BCE and 500 CE, one of the earliest major cultures of Colombia emerged among the swampy mangroves that cover five hundred kilometers of Pacific coastline along southern Colombia and northern Ecuador. Now referred to as Tumaco-La Tolita, their ceramics are remarkable for the realism of expression, including old age and illness. Perhaps more remarkably, they are the only culture in the ancient world to isolate and work platinum.
Tolima stylized breast plates are among the most iconic artworks of ancient Colombia. However, we know very little about what they might represent and how they were used. They display a four-legged being with a human-like face, and many have a long, bifurcated tail and a pair of protrusions on the head—elements that are both reminiscent of insects or crustaceans. These figures depict hybrid beings that could represent spiritual processes of transformation.
The offering was a central practice of daily rituals and collective ceremonies for Indigenous Colombians. Ceramic, jewelry, stone, shell, wood, cotton, emeralds, corn, tobacco, coca, and blood were elemental in the complex of rituals related to both individual and collective needs.
Between the eighth and sixteenth centuries, the altiplano (high plain) around what is present-day Bogota was the home of a decentralized and linguistically diverse group of people we now collectively call the Muisca. Muisca caciques (rulers) presided over a wide variety of valuable materials—including textiles, metals, precious stones, tobacco, coca, and beeswax—and officiated at collective offering rituals.
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia encompasses a unique ecosystem as the world’s tallest coastal mountain range. During earlier periods (Nahuange), people concentrated in the coastal bays, where they fished, farmed, extracted salt, and produced tumbaga (gold-copper alloy) adornments and figures. From 900 CE, in the Tairona period, these groups settled higher on the rugged mountain slopes, constructing large urban centers (see photos below), water systems, and stone pathways.