The sacred places. The most important places of San Agustin's culture are in Las Mesitas area (A,B,C,D) near San Agustin's village, on the Fuente de Lavapatas, on Alto de Lavapatas hill and on some hills near San Josè des Isnos village, as at Alto de los Idolos and Alto de las Piedras. The place of most ancient frequenting seems to be las Mesitas A,B,C and D, and not far from here, Alto de Lavapatas, while the religious and probably political centers are at the Mesitas and at the Mesitas and at Alto de los Idolos. Traces of sculptures are also common in a wide region, as for example at El Tablon, on the Cerro de la Pelota, on the Alto del Mortino and other places.

Common people's tombs were put under the floor of their huts. Important people's tombs were built very richly with a monumental architecture. In order to build the tombs, the top of the hill was first levelled and then new little hills were built to place the funeral monuments.

The most important tombs like those of the Mesitas A, B, and C have a complex architecture, with a big dolmen and one or two great statues in front. Other simpler tombs, like those of the Mesita D, are made of a pit with a side room. Some tombs communicate with a few little temples, built with stone too.

There are also some big monolithic sarcophagus, put in the middle of these monuments which are covered, sometimes, with large slabs showing a carved human figure (perhaps the image of the buried person). Some offers were put around the lateral walls of the dolmen, which were sometimes decorated with graffitoes or with white, red or yellow painted geometrical figures.

The greater statues are over 6 meters tall, the medium ones 2 or 3 meters, the smaller ones are 30 or 80 cm tall. The figures are almost always of antropomorphic type, but they represent sometimes animals too, as birds, frogs or others. The head which is generally very big often shows the teeth and feline fangs. The representations are frontal and symmetrical and the figure is very often standing. Their hands sometimes hold particular tools that archaeologists interpret in different ways (command batons, sun symbols, etc.).

The personages which are represented in the Agustinian statuary may be both male and female. Many are interpreted as solar gods (the males) or lunar godesses (some female personages) as on the latter we can see some symbols that archaeologists interpret as moon representations. Lunar goddesses are associated with water, with the night and with the moon.

. The solar god, who often has a stylized plume and is armed with a hatchet, protects the most important tombs as the ones we can see at Alto de los Idolos and in the Mesita A. In some cases the statues represent the so called "double I" or alter ego, as on the head of the person or of the represented warrior there is also the figure of another person or animal. These curious images are put on the entrance of the dolmens. Other statues are put on open air embankments.

Other figures may represent priests who appear covered of a fur, and have a face hidden by a mask while they hold ceremonials batons in their hands.

According to the dating, who goes from the first century B.C. to seventh A.D. it seems there has been a continous development of the style of the statues and also of the pottery associated to this culture. Jeweller's art, pectorals, copper or golden collars and diadems, looks like the one of the culture of the Cauca valley and the Tolima's; the first finds, discovered in the Mesita B, dating about in the second decade B.C., show that the art in the Colombian culture is very ancient.

The orientations of the Agustinian monument. During a recent study mission executed in September 1993, the author executed by an alidad (maximum error 0.2 degrees) a series of orientation measurements (with an error that in some cases gets to a 1°, because of the condition of the monument), in the area of San Agustin, on most of the tombs, and tomb sets put in the Mesitas, at the Alto de Lavapatas, at the Alto de los Idolos and at the Alto de las Piedras; all those tombs that are visible today have been measured.

Alto de los Idolos - In this site, near San Josè des Isnos, a group of several tombs, dated between the I century B.C. and the VII century A.D., are placed on the top of a hill,  levelled and U-shaped. (see map). In the area there are two mesitas A and B, with five tombs and two steles, and on the U-shaped earthworks there are 10 'monticuli' with large similar tombs. Of these 18 measurements were taken. (grafico 1) The recorded azimuths indicate strong preference of two directions: north and east. The orientations towards east are all contained in the ortive amplitude of the sun.

Alto de las Piedras - Ten kilometers north of the first site, it contains a dozen tombs, decorated with interesting statues of sun gods and other figures, with a few traces of painting just noticeable (see map). One most interesting statue represents a creature with large fangs imposed over a half human and half animal figure. This was not measured because the original orientation cannot be certain. 11 measurements were taken in this place. They show two prevailing orientation: meridian and equinoctial. (grafico 2)

Alto de Lavapatas - The site is at the top of a hill inside the Parque Arqueologico near the Fuente de Lavapatas. A series of wonderful statues, antropomorphic and zoomorphic, stands on part of the high ground. Some of them are good examples of 'double I's arranged around a large tomb. Only one measurement was taken (meridian) due to the fact that the original placement of the statues was not preserved.

Mesitas. Inside the Parque Arqueologico there are four Mesitas, little man-made hills.

In the area of the Mesita A there are two monticuli with two large dolmenic tombs and various statues and many other tombs near the eastern 'monticulo' (see map). These monuments date from the second and third century A.D. The ten measurements taken in this Mesita are represented in graph 3.

The Mesita B contains the most interesting group of tombs: three small artificial burrows and at the centre of each a main burial area (see map). 18 measurements were taken in this place as shown in graph 4.

The Mesita C is situated near the sacredspring of  Lavapatas. Dated between the III and VII century A.D., it contains a small group of dolmenic graves (see map). Only 3 measurements were taken, due to the lack of visible graves.

The Mesita D is found as a small group of graves in the garden of the museum and a few pits with a chamber. Only one could be measured showing a meridian orientation. This group can be dated to 3 periods: II century B.C, II century A.D. and V century A.D.

Interpretation. The 4 diagrams show quite distinctly that the tombs examined in the study are orientated towards the main point of the compass. A significant spreading of orientations around the East is present while the orientations around the North are narrowly distributed. Western or South directions are rare and so are others. In the tombs that have been examined there are no alignments with the points of sunrise at the solstices or at the equinoxes or with the points of standstills of the moon. The few cases with alignments of this type may be taken as accidental.

The orientations towards the East have probably been determined without any particular astronomical observation. On the contrary those towards the North being much more exact may have been taken by means of some special astronomical observations.

The author suggests two possibilities, to get this directions, either the use of the vertical gnomon which can indicate the North direction with its shortest shadow, or a direct observation of the Polaris. The use of the gnomon was probably known in the Andean regions; although we only have proofs of this at a much later time by Garcilaso de la Vega (Comentarios Reales Cap.XXII).

As to observing the Polaris we must consider that the place is just North of the Equator at a Latitude of 1°53' N, hence the North Pole is barely visible, being very low on the horizon. The Polaris, a II magnitude star, was anyway the only bright star to be found near the pole of the world.

Between the I and VII century A.D. the distance from the Polaris from the Pole, as can be seen on the graph, went from about 12  to 7 degrees. Beeing always low on the horizon, or just under it for several hours, the star could be easily seen only at its superior culmination. This might be the explanation for the good orientations noticed towards the North.

From this work we can see that without any doubt the Agustinians used to orientate their tombs towards the cardinal points. A most thorough analysis, hopefully with contributes by ethnographs, might cast more light to the reasons for this particular orientations in the burial monuments of San Agustin's culture.

Bibliography

• Duque Gomez L., Exploraciones arqueologicas en San Agustin, Imprenta Nacional, Bogotà (1964).
• Duque Gomez L.,Cubillos J.C., Arqueologia de San Agustin, Banco De Republica, Bogotà (1971).
• Gamboa Hinestrosa P., La estatuaria en la sociedad agustiniana, Revista De Divulgacion Cultural, Bogotà (1982).
• Garcilaso de la Vega, Comentarios reales que tratan del origine de los incas, Reyes que fueron del Perù, Lisboa (1609)
• Reichel-Dolmatoff G., San Agustin a culture of Colombia, Praeger, New York (1972).
• Estratigrafia ceramica de San Agustin, Biblioteca del Banco Popular, Bogotà (1975)
• Colombia indigena, Periodo prehispanico, in Manual de Historia de Colombia, (T1), Bogotà (1978)
• Rojas de Perdomo L., Manual de arqueologia colombiana, Bogotà (1989).
• Sotomayor M.L., Uribe M.V., Estatuaria del macizo colombiano, Instituto Colombiano de Antropologia, Bogotà (1987).

Notes: Excerpt from 'Atti e Memorie dell'Accademia Patavina di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti', Volume CVI (1993-94) - Parte II: Classe di Scienze Matematiche e Naturali. Author: G.Romano.

The calculations of the position of the Polaris were carried by G.Umbriaco. English translation by M.Marini and G.Marini.

©1998 Studio CaLion srl

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