Tierradentro
Parque Arqueológico Nacional de Tierradentro
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- The chambers of the largest hypogea can be 10 to 12 metres wide, some held up by two or three free-standing central columns with painted pilasters along the walls.
- About 162 hypogea have been excavated within the national archaeological park.
- The same people also made simple primary burials in shallow shaft tombs with a small side chamber, leaving metal objects, grinding stones, necklaces and pots.
- Pottery collected during the first excavations in 1936 was found to carry traces of coca leaf.
- Charcoal from a burial at Santa Rosa has been dated to about AD 1630, and the Tierradentro culture is thought to have continued into the 17th century.
- The first scientific study was ordered by Cauca's governor Alfredo Navia, himself an archaeologist, after he visited the region.
- In 2007 Tierradentro was voted one of the Seven Wonders of Colombia, taking sixth place.
Why it is worth it
Spiral stairways cut into the soft rock of a hilltop lead several metres down into dark chambers whose walls and ceilings are painted with red, black and white diamonds, zigzags and faces, so that standing inside feels like stepping into a painted house underground. These hypogea, monumental collective tombs carved by a pre-Columbian society in the mountains of south-western Colombia, are the reason the area is called Tierradentro, "the land within". The National Archaeological Park of Tierradentro, which protects them along with carved stone statues, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995.
The tombs cluster on ridges and flattened hilltops around the village of San Andrés de Pisimbalá in the municipality of Inzá, Cauca, while the people who built them lived on the river terraces below. The park's principal groups are at Alto de Segovia, Alto del Duende, Alto de San Andrés, Alto del Aguacate and El Tablón, the last known for its stone figures. A typical hypogeum is entered from the west down a spiral staircase to a main chamber some 5 to 8 metres below ground, ringed by smaller side niches; carved pillars and walls reproduce the interior of a dwelling. The chambers were used for secondary burials, with exhumed bones placed in ceramic urns, and the painted decoration includes geometric bands and figures of lizards, snakes and centipedes. The hypogea in the park are generally dated to the 6th to 9th centuries AD, within a cultural sequence that began around 200 BC, and they are related in style to the statuary of nearby San Agustín, though far denser in number.
The landscape is part of the drama: a knot of steep mountains cut by the gorges of the Páez and Ullucos rivers, dominated by the Nevado del Huila. Systematic study began in 1936, when the geologist Georg Burgs, sent by the University of Cauca, mapped and cleared the known tombs and built the first shelters over them, followed the same year by the archaeologist Gregorio Hernández de Alba. Many tombs had already been emptied by treasure hunters, but the painted chambers themselves survived. The park also has an archaeological museum and an ethnographic museum.
Getting there
The park lies at San Andrés de Pisimbalá in Inzá municipality, Cauca, about 10 km from the town of Belalcázar and roughly 100 km by road from Popayán. The nearest airport is Guillermo León Valencia Airport (PPN) in Popayán, about 66 km away in a straight line across the Central Cordillera.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Tierradentro is one of the ancient Pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia. It started to flourish around 200 BC in the mountains of southwest Colombia, and continued into the 17th century. The Tierradentro culture is particularly well known for its dense collection of elaborate pre-Columbian hypogea. It is considered part of San Agustín culture rather than a separate culture.
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