Passiflora family flower shaped collar. 1,25 x 0,98 in.Courtesy of the Gold Museum. Bogota.
Posted on 06/21/2024 12:02:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Gold Museum in Bogota recently presented an exhibition of the archeological discoveries at Malagana, near the river Bolo in the municipality of Palmira in the Cauca Valley. According to the archeologists, this was another of the sub-Andean cacique-based settlements in the southwest of Colombia, dating back to between 70 and 140 A.D.
The typology of the objects discovered links them to the sequence of cultural manifestations known as the Calima culture, which extended over more than 500 years and assumed many different styles. But the Malagana finds have certain particularities in terms of theme, technique, and design which suggest that they are pieces with their own personality.
(Excerpt) Read more at artnexus.com ...
Passiflora family flower shaped collar. 1,25 x 0,98 in.Courtesy of the Gold Museum. Bogota.
The discovery of the Malagana Treasure began with an accident in a sugar-cane field at Hacienda Malagana, which is situated on the flatlands of the fertile Cauca river valley, near the city of Palmira in western Colombia. A worker was driving a a tractor across the field when the ground suddenly collapsed, and the vehicle fell into a large hole. As the driver inspected his predicament, something shiny caught his eye. The object was made of gold, and the hole turned out to be an ancient hypogeum. The worker removed some of the goldwork items and quietly sold them.Before long, his activities caught the attention of others. Between October and December 1992, hoards of gold-seekers arrived to Hacienda Malagana's sugar-cane field. According to newspaper accounts, the looters numbered as many as 5,000. Reporters on the scene captured the bedlam on camera and published their photographs in newspapers. Even the police and army on the scene were ineffective in controlling the chaos, including one murder, and the wide scale destruction of the ancient cemetery.
Countless artifacts were carried off by the treasure hunters. The weight of the gold objects that were taken from the site has been estimated at 350 pounds by one source and between 310 and 400 pounds by another, who speculates that the amount might even have been greater than 400 pounds.
Late in 1992 the Gold Museum in Bogotá received an impressive assortment of the gold objects made in an unfamiliar style. Research revealed that the source of the artifacts was the Hacienda Malagana site.
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