Gold mask
Art,  CFFC,  Colombia,  History

The Museo del Oro, Bogota

December 27, 2023 / 31 Comments

But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose, I am proceeding solely in quest of them.

Christopher Columbus

When Columbus arrived in what today we think of as Latin America, to be followed by the Spanish conquistadors and other Europeans, they found a land rich in gold. But it wasn’t especially valued for its rarity or as a means of payment by the indigenous peoples. Instead it held profound spiritual significance for them. Objects fashioned from this precious metal weren’t merely passive emblems of riches. Instead they served as dynamic channels connecting humans to the spiritual realm. Gold, intricately linked with the sun, was frequently perceived as a divine emanation.

The people didn’t realise how precious gold was till the Spaniards came, willing to kill in order to get their hands on it. But the Europeans were interested in gold only for its value. Sacred items, despite the locals’ attempts to hide them, were found and melted down to make coins and ingots, which were easier to transport back to Europe. The amount that survives gives some indication of how much more there would have been had the items been valued and preserved.

The Museo del Oro

Bogota’s Gold Museum houses thousands of beautiful pieces from this pre-Hispanic period in Colombia. In total it has a collection of 55,000 pieces, 6,000 of which are on display. It is sponsored and supported by the Bank of the Republic. I sent a virtual postcard from the museum when we visited it earlier this year. Now it is time for a fuller description and more images, shared for Cee’s Gold or Silver challenge.

The variety of the exhibits highlights the different methods used and the differences in beliefs and cultures between the many indigenous groups here. The main room, ‘People and Gold in pre-Hispanic Colombia’, displays pieces from the different cultures which inhabited Colombia before the Spanish colonists arrived. It is divided into different halls for each of these cultures. Although often called ‘gold’, the material they used is more properly known as tumbaga, a gold, silver and copper alloy.

They used many different techniques to work the tumbaga. Some used wax moulds (known as lost-wax casting) to shape it, others hammered it into thin sheets or into wire. Here are just a few of the pieces that especially caught my eye.

Gold container with round lower section and tall neck
The Poporo Quimbaya

This was the first piece acquired by the bank, in 1939, and was the foundation for the museum. It was primarily used as a ceremonial device to hold the lime used when chewing coca leaves during religious ceremonies. It was made around 300 CE with a lost-wax casting process in which a wax sculpture is used to create a mould, the wax then melted until it flows out, and the molten tumbaga poured into all the cavities left by the wax.

Muisca golden sea snail

The Muisca lived on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. This piece was created by pressing seven thin sheets of gold on to a sea snail shell.

Gold shell
Set of gold regalia displayed on a shadowy body
Shamanic regalia

This regalia, found in a tomb, is displayed as it would have been worn: nose ring, earrings and breastplate. It connects its owner to feline creatures and their powers. You can see the jaguar’s spots on the nose ring. The nose ring would have almost completely hid the wearer’s face, suggesting it was used in shamanic rituals.

Funerary mask

Masks that resemble lifeless faces were placed on a dead person, one on top of the other. The masks’ expressionless faces indicate a stable and powerful leader, and the belief that it gave power to the person wearing it.

Flat gold mask with stylised features
Gold funerary mask
Another funerary mask

This one is a little more life-like but would have served a similar purpose. It is one of the oldest of the masks, in very high quality gold.

Tunjo

Small figures known as tunjos (votive dolls) were placed in the tombs, often incorporating features from animals such as cats, snakes, and alligators. These are thought to have represented the hallucinatory visions of shamans induced by the chewing of coca leaves. The animals chosen reflect the region occupied by that culture. For example, crocodiles from the Amazon Basin, frigate birds and flying fish from the coast, pumas and bears from the Andes.

Small flat gold stylised figure
Small gold figure with arms outstretched
A figure of a shaman
Another shaman
Small flat gold figure in a skirt
Two gold nose rings with dates
Nose rings

The abbreviation d.C. stands for the Spanish for AD, después de Cristo. So these are among the newer pieces on display.

Head band

This is engraved with snakes and an image of the sun, personified.

Gold band with intricate details
The Muisca raft

On a higher floor are special exhibits showcasing some of the museum’s most precious objects. I was especially interested in the tiny (10 cm x 20 cm) Muisca Raft, dating from some time in the 14th century, and made from tumbaga (80% gold, 12% silver and 8% copper). It depicts the gold offering ceremony described in the legend of El Dorado.

Elaborate little gold raft made from wire with cast figures on board

In this ceremony the local chief, the zipa, would cover himself in gold dust and sail out on to Lake Guatavitá, a crater lake in the eastern Andes, on a ceremonial raft made of rushes. There he would throw gold objects into the lake as offerings to the gods, before immersing himself in the water. The ceremony was described by Juan Rodríguez Freyle, in his work El Carnero. This is a collection of stories, anecdotes and rumours about the early days of the New Kingdom of Granada (the Spanish colonial territory of what today is Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela). Freyle wrote this account of the ceremony:

The ceremony took place on the appointment of a new ruler. Before taking office, he spent some time secluded in a cave, without women, forbidden to eat salt, or to go out during daylight. The first journey he had to make was to go to the great lagoon of Guatavitá, to make offerings and sacrifices to the demon which they worshipped as their god and lord. During the ceremony which took place at the lagoon, they made a raft of rushes, embellishing and decorating it with the most attractive things they had. They put on it four lighted braziers in which they burned much moque, which is the incense of these natives, and also resin and many other perfumes…

They stripped the heir to his skin, and anointed him with a sticky earth on which they placed gold dust so that he was completely covered with this metal. They placed him on the raft … and at his feet they placed a great heap of gold and emeralds for him to offer to his god. In the raft with him went four principal subject chiefs, decked in plumes, crowns, bracelets, pendants and ear rings all of gold. They, too, were naked, and each one carried his offering … when the raft reached the centre of the lagoon, they raised a banner as a signal for silence.

The gilded Indian then … [threw] out all the pile of gold into the middle of the lake, and the chiefs who had accompanied him did the same on their own accounts. … With this ceremony the new ruler was received, and was recognized as lord and king.

[from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado]

A legend is born

The Spaniards started calling this golden ruler El Dorado, ‘the gilded one’, and later the name became associated not with a person but a place. They and other Europeans had found so much gold in the coastal regions that they believed there had to be a source of great wealth somewhere in the interior. The pursuit of this fabled treasure wasted countless lives.

The Spaniards didn’t find El Dorado, but they did find Lake Guatavitá and tried to drain it in 1545 by cutting a rift in the crater’s rim. They lowered it enough to find hundreds of pieces of gold along the lake’s edge. But the rift was refilled by a landslide and the presumed fabulous treasure in the deeper water never reached. They subsequently decided that Lake Guatavitá was not the place they were looking for, and continued to search for a city that did not exist. I wonder what they would make of Bogota’s Museo del Oro?

I visited Bogota in February 2023

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