The ancient tombs of Colombia's Tierradentro

[Judi Lynn]

One of Tierradentro's underground tombs (Image: The Colombian Way)

Southwest Colombia
by Adriaan Alsema December 28, 2018

Despite being a world heritage site, the precolumbian tombs of Tierradentro are a relatively unknown tourism gem in southwestern Colombia.

The relative obscurity of this archaeological treasure in the municipality of Inza is because of its location in eastern Cauca, an area that was long territory controlled by the now-demobilized FARC guerrilla group.

Locals and indigenous people in the area have known about the 2,500-year-old burial sites since forever, but the archaeological importance was not recognized until 1936 when archaeologist Georg Burg of the Cauca University began mapping the tombs and stone objects in the area.

The national government decided to protect and further excavate the site two years later, together with what is now known as the San Agustin archaeological park.



More:
https://colombiareports.com/the-ancient-tombs-of-colombias-tierradentro/

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Wonderful array of amazing images from this area in Colombia. Have never seen these images before, find them fascinating.
Their age, at 2,500 years is phenomenal. So glad science decided to take a much more complete look at this enormous window into the past of the Western Hemisphere:

https://tinyurl.com/ybgdjacg

[KY_EnviroGuy]

1. Thanks, Judi Lynn.

Very impressive hand-dug spiral stairway into the tombs. Looks like the tombs have experienced a lot of flooding during the many centuries.

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