Lea este ensayo en español: La orfebrería en la Colombia antigua
The northern part of South America, in what is now Colombia, was home to societies that created numerous styles of metalwork from 500 BCE to the sixteenth century. Despite this continuous history, not all communities chose to express their ideas about the cosmos, society, and people through metal. There is no evidence, for example, of metal production or use during pre-Hispanic times in the regions of Amazonia and Orinoquia (Eastern Plains) that make up half of Colombia’s territory. Rather, metalworking originated along the Pacific coast between northern Ecuador and southern Colombia and remained concentrated there, on the Caribbean coast, and in the valleys and mountains of the Andes.
Artists in the southern part of the region, continuing ancient technological traditions of the Central Andes, commonly hammered metal to create their objects, while those in the central and northern regions tended to use lost-wax casting, a novel approach that would come to dominate subsequent styles of Central American metalwork, including goldwork. Despite these general regional preferences, hammered objects can be found in the north, just as lost-wax castings were made in the south, with some objects and styles reflecting considerable skill in both techniques.
Gold and copper, either alone or in alloys currently known as tumbagas, were the principal metals of these artists, though other elements are evident in their work. Silver, whose intentional use was limited to the Nariño Plateau in southern Colombia, is usually present in artifacts from other styles due to its natural occurrence in alluvial gold. Platinum, in turn, is found only in the metallurgy of the Tolita-Tumaco culture (500 BCE–300 CE) using a sintering technique. In those works, a mixture of platinum and gold particles was heated to just below gold’s melting point (1,064°C; 1,948°F) and then hammered into the desired form.
One might expect that the production of precious-metal objects coincided with the existence of wealth-accumulating elites. However, the social hierarchies of ancient Colombian societies were not based on amassing goods or controlling economic resources. Power and prestige were expressed in the maintenance of alliances and exchange networks, the transmission of fundamental cosmological ideas, and an adherence to shared cultural principles. Metal objects and other material goods were essential to achieving these ends. Hence, the diversity of Colombian metalwork is a manifestation of the different value regimes through which Indigenous societies shaped their conceptions of authority and social hierarchy.
Metal artifacts were generally created as offerings to tutelary beings and as adornments for the bodies of the living and the dead. Such purposes could easily overlap, as in the case of funerary objects of the Calima (Yotoco) culture (100 BCE–700 CE) that simultaneously served as offerings and ornaments. Gold diadems , nose ornaments , pectorals , and pendants featuring miniature figurines ; recovered from the burials of elites usually have traces of wear and repair that testify to their wider use and circulation in life. Whatever the context, the effect of these artifacts must have been striking indeed: intensely yellow due to the use of alluvial gold, polished to a high shine, and possessing kinetic potential thanks to openwork and hanging elements.
In contrast to objects designed for display, metalwork of the Muisca cultures of the Cordillera Oriental (Eastern Ranges; 1000–1600 CE) featured objects intended to be hidden. Muisca votive metalwork was placed in ceramic vessels that served as repositories for offerings (that included, among other materials, gemstones, cups, shells, textiles, and food) and deposited in the ground or in lakes, lagoons, or caves. With a marked inclination toward lost-wax casting, Muisca artists chose the metals and iconography for their artifacts according to the message the person who commissioned the offering wanted to convey. While their finished objects were relatively rough compared to Calima objects—surface treatment was minimal, and casting risers sometimes remained attached ; —Muisca artists invested considerable effort into creating wax models as exhibited by the meticulous and delicate rendering of weapons , headdresses, and necklaces on the figurines.
Colombian metalworkers placed great importance on the color of the metal they fashioned, as it expressed deeply rooted understandings of the cosmos. Changes in the color, brightness, and intensity of the sun and moon in daily and seasonal cycles were thought to be related to the birth, maturation, death, and regeneration of the universe and all its beings. Accordingly, the finish and tonality of metal artifacts reflected symbolic associations that only grew stronger with the addition of kinetic, sonorous, olfactory, and tactile elements. As creators of such potent objects, metalsmiths were seen as masters of demiurgic procedures for manipulating the very elements that made up the universe, and their workshops, furnaces, and crucibles were considered settings for the gestation and transformation of the world.
The complex symbolism of this metallurgic iconography offers important insight into the thinking of Indigenous societies in Colombia. Figures combining human and animal traits conveyed the transformative power of shamanism and the essential attributes shared by human and nonhuman beings alike . Such notions are embodied in the bat-man icon of the Tairona chiefdoms of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (900–1600 CE; ; ). The different advocations of this icon indicate that metamorphosis required the use of gold facial ornaments to evoke the animal’s features: ear ornaments simulate the frontal protuberance of the tragus of the bat’s ear; a nose ornament elevates the nasal septum in a clear allusion to the tube-shaped snout ; and an adornment passing through a sublabial perforation recreates the fleshiness below the lower lip ; ; . The bat has long been an important presence in the material culture of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, predating the Tairona chiefdoms and extending to the Indigenous Kogi people of the present. As a nocturnal mammal that can fly, it is seen as a mediator between worlds, and its association with blood makes it a potent symbol of fertility and fecundity.
Plants play a less prominent role in ancient Colombian metalwork with a significant exception: the lime containers (poporos) of the Early Quimbaya style (1–700 CE). The ritual use of coca in the Andes involved placing a pinch of coca leaves in the mouth along with a small amount of powdered lime made from seashells. Containers for the lime—poporos—took the form of gourds, squashes, or fruit from the calabash tree. When Quimbaya gold poporos are, or include, anthropomorphic representations, they are realistic and, very often, feminine ; . This occurrence has been seen as a symbolic expression of fertility in the connection between gourds, women, and gold poporos: they can contain and activate elements vital to the regeneration of society and the universe.
Accounts from the early decades of European exploration in what is today Colombia illustrate the vitality and diversity of Indigenous metalwork at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In the colonial period, new value regimes and ways of understanding prestige, power, and wealth would affect the local perception of metals—part of a process of global transformations of which we are still witnesses and protagonists.