This week, I spoke to two experts and campaigners about the San Agustín Statues - we dug into what they might mean and why they matter, as well as how so many of them ended up so far from Colombia and how important it is to get them back here.
This interview is also available on the Colombia Calling podcast - the Spotify version embedded here has ads and the week’s headlines - also available on Apple and wherever else you get your podcasts!
In the area around San Agustín, Huila, hundreds of ancient megalithic statues have been found: it’s the region’s largest collection of pre-Hispanic sculptures, dating back to the 9th century BC.
Photo: Emily Hart | 2024
The statues are remarkably varied: some are human figures with fangs or wings, others are simian, some are a combination of animal and man. Some are carved in situ, others onto single rock slabs 15 feet tall - some even have their original paint.
The statues both invite and totally defy interpretation, and theories about them abound: from burial rights, shamans, and psychedelic drugs to aliens and Atlantis.
These statues were made by the Sculptor People, the Pueblo Escultor, an enigmatic community whose lives and work we are still trying to decipher. Surprisingly little is known about the people who created the mounds in which most of the statues were found – what the figures represent is much-debated, as is their purpose.
Photo: Emily Hart | 2024
This community also disappeared, moved away, or simply stopped sculpting centuries before the Spanish arrived – there are (again) competing explanations as to why.
Though there are hundreds of statues at archaeological sites around San Agustín, some statues are missing – in the 20th Century, European institutions and individuals removed statues from sites – many ended up in museums in cities like London and Berlin, others in private collections.
Photo: Emily Hart | 2024
The movement to get this cultural patrimony back is gaining momentum – the current president has taken up the fight and hundreds of artefacts from various civilisations and communities have been returned to Colombia over the last two years.
It’s a conversation which has been growing across the world – and the clamour from Colombia is being heard.
In 2017, Cundinamarca’s High Court, via judicial decree, ruled favorably on the Acción Popular that seeks to repatriate 35 stone statues made by the ancient Pueblo Escultor of the valley of San Agustín and the Macizo Colombiano - taken to Berlin, Germany, in the early 20th Century by Konrad Preuss. They are currently in the city’s Ethnological Museum.
The decree orders the parties served with the suit (the Presidency, the Procuraduría, the Ministry of Foreign Relations, the Ministry of Culture, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH), and the Government of the Department of Huila) to immediately proceed with all judicial and diplomatic actions needed to carry out the repatriation of the sculptures.
This month, the Colombian government officially requested the return of a number of these statues held in the Berlin Ethnological Museum - a huge step for the campaign group towards the return of the statues to their place of origin.
Learn about the campaign to return the statues from Berlin here
Photo: Emily Hart | 2024
On the podcast, I have David Dellenback and Martha Gil, who are key to this campaign and will be telling us about the academic and ethical issues around repatriation of artefacts - as well as digging into the history and lore of the statues themselves.
David is originally from the US but has lived in San Agustín since the 1970s, author of the book ‘The Statues of the Pueblo Escultor’, along with the most complete set of diagrams and studies of the statuary, along with their measurements, locations, and features. Martha is a guide and cultural activist, as well as translator of David’s book into Spanish.
The two, who are married, have presented the study, as well as an illustrated campaign book about the repatriation of these spiritual and cultural artefacts at Bogotá’s international bookfair, the FilBo.
Over the next hour, we are going to be talking about the ancient mysteries of the Pueblo Escultor and their megalithic language – as well as about the modern history of plunder and theft – and whether these perplexing statues might, one day soon, be coming home.
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