page_title: Muisca art
section_title: Pre-Muisca art
hierarchical_section_title: Muisca art / Pre-Muisca art
caption_attribution_description: Remains of a Muisca temple, nowadays called El Infiernito, nearby Villa de Leyva, Colombia
context_page_description: The Muisca established one of the four grand civilisations of the pre-Columbian Americas on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in present-day central Colombia. Their various forms of art have been described in detail and include pottery, textiles, body art, hieroglyphs and rock art. While their architecture was modest compared to the Inca, Aztec and Maya civilisations, the Muisca are best known for their skilled goldworking. The Museo del Oro in the Colombian capital Bogotá houses the biggest collection of golden objects in the world, from various Colombian cultures including the Muisca.
  The first art in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes goes back several millennia. Although this predates the Muisca civilisation, whose onset is commonly set at 800 AD, nevertheless, some of these styles persevered through the ages.
  During the preceramic era, the people of the highlands produced petrographs and petroglyphs representing their deities, the abundant flora and fauna of the area, abstract motives and anthropomorphic or anthropo-zoomorphic elements.
context_section_description: The first forms of art recognised on the Altiplano are petrographs and petroglyphs in various locations on the Altiplano, mainly at the rock shelters of the Bogotá savanna. El Abra, Piedras del Tunjo and Tequendama are among the oldest sites where rock art has been discovered. The Herrera Period, commonly defined from 800 BC to 800 AD, was the age of the first ceramics. The oldest Herrera pottery has been discovered in Tocarema and dates to 800 BC. Herrera art is also represented by the archaeoastronomical site, called El Infiernito by the Spanish. On a field outside Villa de Leyva, menhirs in the shape of aligned phalluses were erected. This site, the oldest remaining of constructed art, dated at 500 BC, formed an important place for religious rituals and festivities where great quantities of the alcoholic drink chicha was consumed. The evidence for festivities at this site are from a later date, already in the Muisca Period.
  The goldworking in the northern parts of South America, mainly in present-day Colombia, is thought to originate from regions more to the south; the north of Peru and Ecuador, during a large timespan from 1600 to 1000 BC. The development of different goldworking cultures in southern Colombia happened around 500 BC. The late Herrera Period showed the first evidences of goldworking on the Altiplano. Golden artefacts have been found in Tunja and Cómbita in Boyacá and Guatavita in Cundinamarca with estimated ages ranging from 250 to 400 AD.
caption: The phallic monoliths of archaeoastronomical observatory El Infiernito are the oldest remaining constructed art on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense
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