''Cristo Rey'' (English: Christ the King) is a statue 26 meters tall located in the ''Cerro de los Cristales'' (Hill of the Crystals) in the village of Los Andes, west of the city of

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the second ...

, Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The hill is so named because of the large amount of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

that could be collected in the surrounding area. On Sunday October 25, 1953, the statue was inaugurated at its summit an image of Christ in celebration of the fifty years following the end of the

War of a Thousand Days The Thousand Days' War ( es, Guerra de los Mil Días) was a civil war fought in Colombia from 17 October 1899 to 21 November 1902, at first between the Liberal Party and the government led by the National Party, and later – after the Conser ...

. It is made of iron and concrete, with a mass of 464 tons and a height of 26 m, of which 5m belong to the pedestal.MONUMENT TO CRISTO REY
(Santiago de Cali County)

History

The Jesuit priest José María Arteaga had commissioned the Palmiran artist Gerardo Navia Carvajal to build the statue, but he only made a model before abandoning the project.

Tourism

Carlos Andrés Gómez, el artista del Barranquismo

As people ascend the hill they can see the work of artist Carlos Andrés Gómez, who for two years sculpted his work on 34 ravines. This work is known as the biblical scenes of

Golgotha Calvary ( la, Calvariae or ) or Golgotha ( grc-gre, Γολγοθᾶ, ''Golgothâ'') was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was said to have been crucified according to the canonical Gospels. Since at least the early mediev ...

. In the first canyon carved ''Existence'', as a tribute to life and man; in the second, the ''Lament of the Pacha Mama'', as a protest of nature for the damage that man has done to the environment; in the third gave life to Golgotha, to accompany the faithful make pilgrimage at Easter. In the fourth ravine is ''The Garden of Eden''. The figures modeled with cement and clay range from 50 centimeters to 5 meters high and extend over five kilometers. The entrance to the monument of ''Christ the King'' is free. It is open from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm. There is a chapel, restaurant and parking, among other features. Currently the sculpture is visited annually by 290,650 local and foreign tourists from the rest of Colombia and is one of the wonders of modern Colombia.

References

{{reflist Monuments of Colombia Colossal statues of Jesus

History

Tourism

See also

References