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Piedras Del Tunjo Archaeological Park
Piedras del Tunjo (Spanish for "Tunjo Rocks") is an important archaeological park established on a natural rock shelter west of Bogotá in the municipality of Facatativá. Description In the Late Pleistocene, the site used to be the shore of a large lake flooding the Bogotá savanna; Lake Humboldt .8 It was used by the Muisca rulers as a refuge during the time of the Spanish conquest. The site is one of the possible places where the soldiers of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada killed the ruling ''zipa'' Tisquesusa in April 1537. The rocks are covered with pictographs made by Muisca artists on rocks of the Guadalupe Group.Plancha 227, 1998 Their age has not been confirmed. The area of the park used to be an hacienda, property of a wealthy family since colonial times. It was nationalized in 1946 to establish the park. Destruction of the ancient pictographs Decades of government negligence and lack of policies for the protection of archaeological heritage have resulted in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Facatativá
Facatativá is a city and municipality in the Cundinamarca Department, located about 18 miles (31 km) northwest of Bogotá, Colombia and 2,586 meters above sea level. The city is known for its Archaeological Park Piedras del Tunjo (Rocks of the Tunjo Indian) and best known in Colombia as ''Piedras del Tunjo'' (literally, Rocks of Tunjo), although locals call it ''Piedras de Tunja'' (Rocks of Tunja). It features large rock formations that were once the bottom of a lake. Etymology The word Facatativá comes from the indigenous Chibcha language spoken by the Muisca who inhabited the area of Facatativá before the Spanish conquest. It has been translated and interpreted differently over time. The historically accepted translation is "fenced fort at the end of the plains" (''Cercado fuerte al final de la llanura'') although it has also been translated as "fenced fort outside the farming soil" (''Cercado fuerte a las afueras de la labranza'') [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nemocón Rock Shelter
Nemocón is a municipality and town of Colombia in the Central Savanna Province, part of the department of Cundinamarca. Nemocón, famous for its salt mine, was an important village in the Muisca Confederation, the country in the central Colombian Andes before the arrival of the Spanish. The municipality is situated in the northern part of the Bogotá savanna, part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense with its urban centre at an altitude of and from the capital Bogotá. Nemocón is the northeasternmost municipality of the Metropolitan Area of Bogotá and the Bogotá River originates close to Nemocón. The median temperature of Nemocón is 12.8 °C. The municipality borders Tausa in the north, Suesca and Gachancipá in the east, Tocancipá and Zipaquirá in the south and in the west the rivers Checua and Neusa and the municipality of Cogua. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
INGEOMINAS
The Colombian Geological Survey (CGS) ( es, Servicio Geológico Colombiano; formerly known as INGEOMINAS) is a scientific agency of the Colombian government in charge of contributing to the socioeconomic development of the nation through research in basic and applied geosciences of the subsoil, the potential of its resources, evaluating and monitoring threats of geological origin, managing the geoscientific knowledge of the nation, and studying the nuclear and radioactive elements in Colombia. History The CGS was initially created as the ''National Scientific Commission'' ( es, Comisión Científica Nacional) by the Congress of Colombia on December 22, in 1916, with the mission of mapping the geological resources of the nation and exploring the national territory in search of mineral deposits. Following a series of earthquakes throughout the nation in the early 1920s, the eruption of the Galeras volcano in 1925, and the growing mining and petroleum industry, the Colombian govern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cojines Del Zaque
The ''Cojines del Zaque'' (English: "Cushions of the ''Zaque''") is an archeological site of the Muisca located in the city of Tunja, Boyacá, which in the time of the Muisca Confederation was called Hunza. The ''cojines'' are two round stones used in the religion of the Muisca to worship Sun god Sué and his wife; Moon goddess Chía. When the Spanish conquistadores arrived, they called them ''Cojines del Diablo''. Background During the time before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca, the central highlands of the Colombian Andes (Altiplano Cundiboyacense) were populated by the Muisca. This advanced civilization had its own religion and rituals, centered around the most important deities Sué and Chía. The northern territories were ruled by the ''iraca'' of Sugamuxi, the ''tundama'' of Tundama and the ''zaque'' based in Hunza. Description The Cojines are two circular stones made of sandstone located at the base of the San Lázaro hill in Tunja. The northernmost ''Cojín'' mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sun Temple (Sogamoso)
The Sun Temple of Sogamoso was a temple constructed by the Muisca as a place of worship for their Sun god Sué. The temple was built in Sogamoso, Colombia, then part of the Muisca Confederation and called Sugamuxi. It was the most important temple in the religion of the Muisca. The temple was destroyed by fire brought by the Spanish conquistadores led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada who was eager to find the legendary ''El Dorado''. A reconstruction has been built in the Archeology Museum of Sogamoso. Structure and worship The Temple of the Sun was built on the right banks of the small river Monquirá. The temple was a large round structure made of poles and clay with a roof made of reed. The temple did not have any windows. The columns surrounding the temple were built in three concentric rings made of wood harvested in Casanare. The temple represented the cosmos and was built to honour Sun god Sué. The temple also was a burial ground for the most important ''caciques'' and pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Checua
Checua is a preceramic open area archaeological site in Nemocón, Cundinamarca, Colombia. The site is located north of the town centre.Gómez Mejía, 2012, p.146 At Checua, thousands of stone and bone tools, stone flakes and human remains have been found, indicating human occupation from around 8500 to 3000 years BP. Main archaeologist for Checua is Ana María Groot, who published the results of her research in 1992.Groot de Mahecha, 1992 Background The Altiplano Cundiboyacense has been inhabited at least since 12,500 years ago. The first human settlers migrated via the Darién Gap from Central America to South America and led a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They populated the rock shelters of the high plateau in the Andes, then still with abundant Pleistocene megafauna as ''Cuvieronius'', ''Haplomastodon'', ''Equus amerhippus'' and giant sloths. During this preceramic phase, the population shifted from rock shelters to open area settlement, of which Galindo and Checua are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aguazuque
Aguazuque is a pre-Columbian archaeological site located in the western part of the municipality Soacha, close to the municipalities Mosquera and San Antonio del Tequendama in Cundinamarca, Colombia. It exists of evidences of human settlement of hunter-gatherers and in the ultimate phase primitive farmers. The site is situated on the Bogotá savanna, the relatively flat highland of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense close to the present-day course of the Bogotá River at an altitude of above sea level. Aguazuque is just north of another Andean preceramic archaeological site; the rock shelter Tequendama and a few kilometres south of Lake Herrera. The artefacts found mostly belong to the preceramic period, and have been dated to 5025 to 2725 BP (3000 to 700 BCE). Thus, the younger finds also pertain to the later ceramic Herrera Period. There were some difficulties in dating of the uppermost layer due to modern agricultural activity in the area; the sediments of the shallower parts wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guadalupe Group
The Guadalupe Group ( es, Grupo Guadalupe, K2G, Ksg) is a geological group of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The group, a sequence of shales and sandstones, is subdivided into three formations; Arenisca Dura, Plaeners and Arenisca Labor-Tierna, and dates to the Late Cretaceous period; Campanian-Maastrichtian epochs and at its type section has a thickness of . Etymology The group was published in 1978 by Pérez and Salazar and named after its type locality Guadalupe Hill in the Eastern Hills of Bogotá.Montoya Arenas & Reyes Torres, 2005, p.37 Description Lithologies The Guadalupe Group is characterised by three formations; two sandstone sequences, Arenisca Dura and Arenisca Labor-Tierna, and an intermediate shale formation; Plaeners. Stratigraphy and depositional environment The Guadalupe Group overlies the Conejo Formation in the central part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense and the Chipaque Formation in the eastern part an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pictographs
A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to a considerable extent pictorial in appearance. A pictogram may also be used in subjects such as leisure, tourism, and geography. Pictography is a form of writing which uses representational, pictorial drawings, similarly to cuneiform and, to some extent, hieroglyphic writing, which also uses drawings as phonetic letters or determinative rhymes. Some pictograms, such as Hazards pictograms, are elements of formal languages. "Pictograph" has a different definition in the field of prehistoric art (which includes recent art by traditional societies), where it means art painted on rock surfaces. This is in comparison to petroglyphs, where the images are carved or incised. Such images may or may no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tisquesusa
Tisquesusa, also spelled Thisquesuza, Thysquesuca or Thisquesusha (referred to in the earliest sources as Bogotá, the Elder) (died Facatativá, 1537) was the fourth and last independent ruler ('' psihipqua'') of Muyquytá, main settlement of the southern Muisca between 1514 and his death in 1537. The Spanish pronunciation of his name brought about the Colombian capital Bogotá. Tisquesusa was the ruler of the southern Muisca Confederation at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Muisca, when the troops led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and his brother entered the central Andean highlands. Biography Bogotá was ''cacique'' of Chía and following the Muisca heritage rules, he as nephew of the previous ruler Nemequene succeeded his uncle in 1514. At the start of his reign, Bogotá fought against the Panche in the west of the Muisca Confederation. The brother of Tisquesusa and later -according to Muisca heritage rule illegal- successor Sagipa was the general in the southern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zipa
When the Spanish arrived in the central Colombian highlands, the region was organized into the Muisca Confederation, which had two rulers; the ''zipa'' was the ruler of the southern part and based in Muyquytá. The ''hoa'' was the ruler of the northern area and based in Hunza, known today as Tunja. Organization ''Psihipqua'' and ''hoa'' were the titles given to these rulers of the ancient confederation. Neither exercised absolute power, not rigid or strict control over those to whom they owed their power, so that they can be considered kings. However, these positions of power were of great honor and were surrounded by a rather elaborate ceremony. The position of the ''psihipqua'' was such that not even the members of the nobility dared to look him in the face, and it is said if the ''psihipqua'' needed to spit, someone would hold out a piece of rich cloth for him to spit on, because it would be sacrilegious for anything so precious as his saliva to touch the ground. Whoever hel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gonzalo Jiménez De Quesada
Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada y Rivera, also spelled as Ximénez and De Quezada, (;1496 16 February 1579) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador in northern South America, territories currently known as Colombia. He explored the territory named by him New Kingdom of Granada, and founded its capital, Santafé de Bogotá. As a well-educated lawyer he was one of the intellectuals of the Spanish conquest. He was an effective organizer and leader, designed the first legislation for the government of the area, and was its historian. He was governor of Cartagena between 1556 and 1557, and after 1569 he undertook explorations toward the east, searching for the elusive ''El Dorado''. The campaign didn't succeed and Jiménez then returned to New Granada in 1573. He has been suggested as a possible model for Cervantes' ''Don Quixote''. Family His father, Luis Jiménez de Quesada, was a ''hidalgo'' relative of Gonzalo Francisco de Cordoba, and he had two well-known distant cousins, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
