page_title: Muisca mummification
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Muisca mummification / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Gold Museum, Bogotá, Colombia
context_page_description: The Muisca inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the Colombian Andes before the arrival of the Spanish and were an advanced civilisation. They mummified the higher social class members of their society, mainly the zipas, zaques, caciques, priests and their families. The mummies would be placed in caves or in dedicated houses and were not buried.
  Many mummies from the Chibcha-speaking indigenous groups have been found to date, mainly from the Muisca, Lache and Guane. In 1602 the early Spanish colonisers found 150 mummies in a cave near Suesca, that were organised in a scenic circular shape with the mummy of the cacique in the centre of the scene. The mummies were surrounded by cloths and pots. In 2007 the mummy of a baby was discovered in a cave near Gámeza, Boyacá, together with a small bowl, a pacifier and cotton cloths. The process of mummification continued into the colonial period. The youngest mummies have been dated to second half of the 18th century.
  The early Spanish chroniclers Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, Pedro Simón, Pedro de Aguado, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés and others have provided the first historical data on the Muisca mummies.
context_section_description: Mummification was a common practice in South American cultures. The Nazca, Paracas and Chachapoya of Peru conducted mummifications. The oldest evidence of mummification in the Americas is known from the Chinchorro culture in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and has been dated at 7000 years BP. The practice was also performed by various pre-Columbian cultures in Colombia. Of the cultures to the southwest of the Altiplano, the Calima, Pijao and Quimbaya practiced mummification. On and close to the Altiplano the Muisca, Guane and Lache mummified their dead and north of the Altiplano the Chitarero and Zenú also executed the mummification process. The indigenous groups inhabiting the jungles of the Darién mummified their caciques.
  The Muisca started their mummification practices in the Late Herrera Period, approximately from the 5th century AD onwards.
  The use of substances to balm the body and the extraction of the organs has been described by franciscan Estebán de Asencio in 1550. The process took eight hours to dry the body with a dusty balm after the intestines were extracted. While the exact composition of the balm has not been determined, the moque was probably a type of resin, used in other rituals and practices around the mummification.
  Another method of preparation of the mummies was more frequent. The body would be dried using fire and smoke and no extraction of organs would be performed. The heat of the fire not only dried the body, also the phenol liberated by the smoke would conserve the body and prevent it from decomposing. This process, that also the Guane performed to prepare their mummies, has been described by Pedro Simón.
  The dried bodies were wrapped in various layers of cotton cloths, mostly painted. Emeralds were put in the mouths and to cover the eyes and bellybutton of the deceased and sometimes even cloths were inserted in their rectum. The ears and nose were covered with cotton cloths as well.
  During the mummification rituals, the Muisca sang songs and drank chicha for various days in a row.
  As the Muisca believed in an afterlife, the mummies were buried surrounded by pots with food as beans, maize and chicha, mantles and golden figures for their stay in another world, similar to ours. The mummies of the higher classes were decorated with golden earrings or noserings and with golden feathered crowns and emeralds.
  The discovery of a cave in Gámeza, Boyacá in 2007, proved also children were mummified; a mummified baby of a couple of months old was wrapped in cotton cloths and accompanied by a teether, a small bowl, three strings of cotton and a small bag around the neck.
  In the temples and places reserved for the mummies, the bodies were put on a platform of reed, as an elevated bed, called barbacoas. Other mummies were placed on small wooden stools. The mummies were left there without being buried. All the mummies found were in a similar sitting position with the arms and legs folded towards the torso. Ezequiel Uricoechea described in 1854 that the fingers of the mummified persons were strapped together with cotton cords. Some of the mummies, probably those of the warriors, were found with golden arms in their hands. The fighters were richly decorated with emeralds, crowns and fine cloths and bags of cotton.
  According to Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada who made the first contact with the Muisca, during the conquest, the guecha warriors carried mummies on their backs to serve as an example and to impress their enemies in their warfare. When his soldiers Miguel Sánchez and Juan Rodríguez Parra raided the Sun Temple in Sogamoso in September 1537, they found mummies decorated with golden crowns and other objects sitting on raised platforms.
caption: The mummies of the higher classes were decorated with golden crowns, earrings and noserings
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