page_title: Muisca
section_title: History of the Muisca
hierarchical_section_title: Muisca / History of the Muisca
caption_attribution_description: English: Rock art Colombia
context_page_description: The Muisca are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan language family, also called Muysca and Mosca. As one out of four advanced civilizations of the Americas, they were encountered by conquistadors ordered by the Spanish Empire in 1537 at the time of the conquest. Subgroupings of the Muisca were mostly identified by their allegiances to three great rulers: the zaque, centered in Hunza, ruling a territory roughly covering modern southern and northeastern Boyacá and southern Santander; the zipa, centered in Bacatá and encompassing most of modern Cundinamarca, the western Llanos; and the iraca, religious ruler of Suamox and modern northeastern Boyacá and southwestern Santander.
  The territory of the Muisca spanned an area of around 25,000 km² from the north of Boyacá to the Sumapaz Páramo and from the summits to the western portion of the Eastern Ranges.
context_section_description: Knowledge of events up until 1450 is mainly derived from mythological contexts, but thanks to the Chronicles of the West Indies we do have descriptions of the final period of Muisca history, prior to Spanish arrival.
caption: Petroglyphs of El Abra (~11,000 BCE)
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