Day 21 - 21 Nov 2012
San Agustin is a small town located in the southern part of Colombia. Most people use San Agustin as a base to visit the surrounding area well-known for the pre-Colombian statues. In fact, this region is classified as a UNESCO Heritage site since 1995.
These pre-Colombian stone sculptures include figures of men, animals and mystical creatures. They are commonly found at the burial and ceremonial sites with other grave goods such as pottery, miniature stone artifacts, gold and even children sacrifices. The figure of a shaman would usually be placed in the middle to protect the body from harm. It is also believed that some of these stone sculptures have Asian influences but to date, no documented writing has been found to support this belief.
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| A Shaman |
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| A bird |
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| To pray for sun, water and food |
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| A typical layoutof the tomb |
A local guide that I hired for a 4 hour private riding tour told me that during his spare time, he will be exploring the surrounding area to try and find new burial sites using just a metre long thin metal bar. He claimed that a guide does not earn much in this region and he needed to do this to supplement his family income. He further commented that for each new burial site found, he will only keep the small sculptures while leaving the big sculptures intact to the authorities after notifying them about the latest discovery. Nevertheless, I don't feel good about his actions as I always believe that national or archaeological monuments/artifacts found in a country should all be kept within the country museum. Hence, when he offered to sell me some of these miniature sculptures, I politely declined. And a good thing that I did so as it is a crime to bring out any national artifacts out of a country!!
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