Relics from the past, carved in stone, their creators are gone and forgotten, but the stone remains, stone remembers.
San Agustin is a small Colombian town in the Andes, slumbering beside the source of River Magdalena, which then carries its waters across all the country all the way to the Caribbean Sea. About five thousand years ago it was one of the most significant ancient places on the continent, now San Augustin is actually a collection of ceremonial and burial sites scattered over an area of 400 square kilometers. Little is known about the people who lived there, they didn't have a written language and had disappeared many centuries before the Conquistadors arrived.
The legacy of the long-gone civilization is these stone statues ranging from as small as 20 centimeters to the impressive height of 7 meters. They represent different human and zoomorphic images - some smiling, some frowning, some are devoid of any expression.
In the city itself there's only replicas of these statues, the originals are scattered around. The most notable place to see them is the Archaeological Park of San Agustin. When I went there, I got a bit lost in the countryside around and asked a local, where the entrance at. He told me, the entrance is not here, but this barbed wire fence on the right is separating the territory of the Park from the outside world. For me it looked like a free entrance to the otherwise paid place, for those who can take it. So I climbed the fence and slipped in the guarded zone.
Inside they have a few sites with the unearthed statues and sacred pools, which the indigenous people used to worship water gods. It is called Ceremonial Lavapatas fountain.
But the thing that impressed me the most wasn't the ancient stones, but the colonies of black centipedes moving in mounds across the paved trails:
Fascinating. In any case, I didn't spend much time in San Agustin and soon moved on to my next point of interest, the Tatacoa Desert near Neiva, Colombia...
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Those little statues look so cute, they all have their own little character.
They are not as small as they might seem, most of the statues in this post were taller than me.
St. Agustin is amazing! When I was there in 2015, there was just one open hostel, but the whole village was renovating houses in anticipation of more tourists - how is the situation now?
I can't tell you the whole picture as I've been there for less than 24 hours, yet it seems to be full of tourists now. And plenty of hotels, that's for sure.
Wow.. Sounds like I was there just at the right time then
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Hello nameless-berk. Very beautiful photos, that show us the testimony of ancestral cultures that inhabited SouthAmerica, and that must be taken care of and spread by the governments of the countries where they are, for the promotion of tourism. Twenty points and continue with your interesting trips
I love the statues :) They look like toys :)
The cycle of life requires that each generation rebuild the land according to its conditions, requirements and possibilities. After the sons of that generation have perished, their property is there; the future generations can use it and benefit from it well. Archeology is a term that refers to all the remaining material possessions of the ancient generations; there is almost no region in the world of monuments; however, the amount of this presence of the effects is relatively different from one region to another, some areas are almost devoid of artifacts except a very small number; Where such areas are historically poor and urban areas, unlike other areas where the effects are very large, which reflects the richness of these areas, and the amount of historical wealth and civilization that it owns
Very usefull info in your post! I love the misteries of the ancient times and your post impressed me a lot! Thanks!
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