jewelry of the pre-inka-people in Columbia

a golden lick of the suns plate

1. The cold water frightened the cacique's bare feet as he was lowered into the water from the edge of the balsa raft, held by his three companions by the two outstretched arms. In this alliance of four, one of the four caciques was assigned the role of head of state in the Muisca empire in pre-Columbian Colombia - similar to the Inca in Peru - and the four had come together for the consecration of this ruler.
The gentle waves licked greedily and at the same time lovingly on the bather's glistening golden calves and slowly dissolved the sticky gold dust that was finely distributed there and all over the body on llama fat and red iron slime. While the cacique's body slowly submerged, vast amounts of the finest gold dust trickled like glowing mist into the dark waters of the lake.
When the last granule of valuable metal had come loose from the body of the future ruler, and he was now shining red in the color of the greasy, iron-rich mud out of the water, strong arms pulled him back up onto the wooden raft. All the gold ornaments the ruler wore were untied and cast into the water, as were all kinds of golden bowls and other offerings brought on the raft. A round golden disk, an image of the sun, was hung on the cacique's chest as the only piece of jewelry.
The preparations had been extensive: the four caciques had fasted for weeks and also shown abstinence in many other respects. On the morning of the dedication ceremony, the sky had been scanned for messages and the wind direction checked several times. All four caciques were assigned to one of these four directions and thus also to the four landscapes of the Muisca kingdom: Would it be the winds that blew the fine red sand from the Tatacoa desert in the east? Was it the wind today, which would come from the Andean valleys in the south with bitter cold and white snow high up, that would make the decision? Yellow clouds would come from the Pacific, loaded with the yellow solvent powder of the western ever-dry Andes flank. Black and rainy, on the other hand, were always the warm storm winds from the north,
Each of the caciques had their bodies painted with one of these colors. Each had sacrificed to the Patcha Mama, the great Mother Earth, of their own blood, which they had squeezed out of their sensitive tongues with a sharp obsidian splinter. But who would be the future ruler now?
Would the heavenly sun god accept the new cacique chief as his son and representative on earth? Would the sun continue to drive its daily and yearly rhythm for the benefit of mankind?

2. It was hot today. The white-hot sun had burned its way into fields, people and animals in late July with temperatures well over 30 degrees. Now it stood yellow in the west of Schmuttertal, sank lower and lower and finally burned up a dark red. It would touch the lands of distant America in the west and then sink into the black of the sky. Tomorrow our flight to Colombia will take off to the promised land of Eldorado, the land of the gilded ruler (El Dorato = the gilded) of the cultures before Columbus.

3.The myth of gold lured in the 15th century. already the Spaniards, who simply wiped out many of the old cultures out of greed and missionary mania and melted down their golden art treasures. Some were saved or dug up only recently and can be admired in the gold museums in Bogota and some other cities in the South American country.
Objects that go far beyond today's gold value, bring history to life and tell stories. Gold, what a bloody price hangs on it, what labors were expended to obtain it!

4. The lake of the Muisca's gold ritual has been around since the 19th century. found just a few kilometers north of Bogota. Masses of gold diggers tried to rediscover the sacrificed and sunken gold treasures in the depths of the muddy waters. The lake alone is very deep as a former meteorite crater and the finds were thoroughly overlaid with the clay masses supplied by streams. The pieces on display at the Muse dell Oro in Bogota are also limited.
A TV report by "Terra X" tells an exciting story about the extraordinary attempts to raise this treasure of gold completely. One of them was to close off the tributaries during the dry season and dig a huge pit in the mud of the lake. Inflowing groundwater was scooped out. Unfortunately, the loamy, soft soil was difficult and time-consuming to remove, so that the rainy season, which soon set in, flooded everything again before the excavation was finished and completely ruined the progress. While other treasure hunters tended to focus on working in the lake's waters with deep divers, one even came up with the idea of ​​breaching the rim of the crater and providing a permanent low drain. After painstaking earthwork and blasting, success seemed close,

5. Most of the magnificent gold discs in the Bogota Museum were made from gold dust that was cold-forged together or gold nuggets that were driven out flat. Of course, the first obvious thing to notice here is the comparison with the sun disk. Indentations on both sides appear to have originally evolved from holes torn out to attach the disc to the forehead or chest. Several equilateral indentations are already reminiscent of a simplified human figure with raised and bent legs. Can one see the Gilded Son of the Sun being lowered into the water? The figure of the standing Inca emerges from further filing.

6. Gilded replicas from the Bogota Gold Museum can be admired in the jewelry exhibition in the House of Cultures in Diedorf. The museum is open by appointment in the evening from 5 p.m. on 08238/60245 or via the Diedorf municipality: Mr. May: 08238/300426. Guided tours for children also through the Diedorf KKE art school