Malagana, also known as the Malagana Treasure is an archaeological site of Colombia

Archaeological sites in Colombia

Archaeological sites in Colombia are numerous and diverse, including findings and archaeological excavations that have taken place in the area now covered by the Republic of Colombia...

 named after the same name sugarcane

Sugarcane

Sugarcane refers to any of six to 37 species of tall perennial grasses of the genus Saccharum . Native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, they have stout, jointed, fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar, and measure two to six metres tall...

 estate

Estate (house)

An estate comprises the houses and outbuildings and supporting farmland and woods that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house or mansion. It is the modern term for a manor, but lacks the latter's now abolished jurisdictional authority...

 where it was accidentally discovered in 1992 (Malagana being a misspelling of Malaga

Málaga

Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...

). During a few days after its discovery, the place was subject to a large scale looting

Grave robbing

Grave robbery, grave robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a tomb or crypt to steal artifacts or personal effects. Someone who engages in this act is a grave robber or tomb raider...

 with a rough estimated of 4 ton

Ton

The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...

s of precolumbian artifacts

Artifact (archaeology)

An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...

 illegally removed from the burial mounds. A rescue archaeological mission was sent by the National Institute of Antropology and History, led by archaeologist Marianne Cardale. Archaeological excavations at the site established a previously unknown cultural complex, designated as Malagana-Sonsoid, that dates between 300 BC to 300 AD

Discovery

The discovery of the Malagana Treasure began with an accident in a sugar-cane field at Hacienda

Hacienda

Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...

 Malagana, which is situated on the flatlands of the fertile Cauca river

Cauca River

The Cauca River is a river in Colombia that lies between the Occidental and Central cordilleras. Born in southwestern Colombia near the city of Popayán, it joins the Magdalena River near Pinillos in Bolívar Department, and the combined river eventually flows out into the Caribbean Sea. It has a...

 valley, near the city of Palmira in western Colombia. A worker was driving a piece of heavy equipment (a tractor) across the field when the ground suddenly collapsed

Cave In

Cave In is an American rock band that formed in 1995, in Methuen, Massachusetts. After several members changes in the late 90's, their lineup solidified with the 1998 release of Until Your Heart Stops through Hydra Head Records. Their early albums were prominent releases in the independent...

, and the vehicle fell into a large hole. As the driver inspected his predicament, something shiny caught his eye. The object was made of gold, and the hole turned out to be an ancient hypogeum

Hypogeum

Hypogeum or hypogaeum literally means "underground", from Greek hypo and gaia . It usually refers to an underground, non-Christian temple or a tomb...

. The worker removed some of the goldwork items and quietly sold them. Before long, his activities caught the attention of others. Between October and December 1992, hoards of gold-seekers

Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...

 arrived to Hacienda Malagana's sugar-cane field. According to newspaper accounts, the looters numbered as many as 5,000. Reporters on the scene captured the bedlam on camera and published their photographs in newspapers. Even the police and army on the scene were ineffective in controlling the chaos, including one murder, and the wide scale destruction of the ancient cemetery. Countless artifacts were carried off by the treasure hunters. The weight of the gold objects that were taken from the site has been estimated at 160 kilograms (352 pounds) by one source (Bray 2000:94) and between 140 kilograms (308 pounds) and 180 kilograms (396 pounds) by another, who speculates that the amount might even have been greater than 180 kilograms.

Late in 1992 the Gold Museum

Gold Museum

The Gold Museum is a museum located in Bogotá, Colombia. It displays an extraordinary selection of its pre-Hispanic gold work collection - the biggest in the world - in its exhibition rooms on the second and third floors...

 in Bogotá received an impressive assortment of the gold objects made in an unfamiliar style. Research revealed that the source of the artifacts was the Hacienda Malagana site.

Archaeological Excavations

Even though plunderers were still present, archaeological investigations of the Hacienda Malagana cemetery were attempted in March 1993, but had to be discontinued after only a few days. In that brief period the archaeologists were able to examine three of the tombs and to observe the site's stratigraphy

Stratigraphy

Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....

, which indicated a record of prolonged habitation. One grave yielded two gold beads and a pottery vessel that the looters had overlooked. A radiocarbon date of AD 70 +/- 60 (uncalibrated) was obtained from the debris inside the pottery vessel. After the site had finally been abandoned by the treasurer hunters, more extensive excavations were conducted late in 1994. Because the cemetery area of the site had been destroyed, the 1994 excavations focused on a residential area some 500 meters from the ransacked cemetery area. These excavations revealed a lengthy and complex stratigraphy, seventeen burials, four occupation periods, and additional radiocarbon dates. The occupational periods were designated as "Proto-Llama" (earliest period), "Llama," "Malagana," and "Sonsoid" (latest) (Bray 2000:94-95). Links in the form of trade by the inhabitants of Malagana with groups in the San Agustín and Tierradentro areas to the south and with the Tolima and Quimbaya areas to the east and north are apparent at in the artifact assemblies. By the Malagana period, Malagana had developed as a regional culture with a distinguishable style.

Museo del Oro (Gold Museum)

After receiving the initial gold items, the Museum of Gold launched a campaign to locate and recover as many artifacts as possible that were stolen from the tombs of the main cemetery at Hacienda Malagana. Over 150 objects were acquired as a result of this endeavor. While the gold items themselves are spectacular to look at, their ability to give important data about the people who created them was lost in the 1992 "gold rush" when they were ripped from tombs in which they had been placed many centuries before. Although some physical information about the artifacts themselves may be gained by careful study of the objects, their true value of providing clues to the past is possible only when the objects are found in their original cultural context

Archaeological context

In archaeology, not only the context of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. The cutting of a pit or ditch in the past is a context, whilst the material...

. Remarkably, museum archaeologists were able to obtain general information about the archaeological context for a number of these objects by pursuing accounts from individuals who had witnessed the plundering frenzy of 1992. As a result, the archaeologists were able to designate the artifact assemblies for twenty-nine of the graves, which provides important knowledge not only about religion and burial practices, but also about the political and social structures and value systems of the Malagana culture (Bray 2000:94-95).

Description of Tomb 1 and its Contents, Main Cemetery

In several instances interviews with the 1992 observers coupled with meticulous study of the artifacts, the actual arrangement of the gold, pottery and other items in the tombs have been able to be reconstructed by the archaeologists. One such tomb is Tomb 1, which is among the most prolific from the main cemetery of the site. Bray describes the layout of the tomb, as follows:

The tomb consisted of a rectangular shaft about 3 m deep, filled with gravel

Gravel

Gravel is composed of unconsolidated rock fragments that have a general particle size range and include size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. Gravel can be sub-categorized into granule and cobble...

 and river sand containing specks of alluvial gold. The floor was paved with rectangular slabs of a white granitic stone foreign to the Cauca

Cauca River

The Cauca River is a river in Colombia that lies between the Occidental and Central cordilleras. Born in southwestern Colombia near the city of Popayán, it joins the Magdalena River near Pinillos in Bolívar Department, and the combined river eventually flows out into the Caribbean Sea. It has a...

 floodplain

Floodplain

A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...

, and a single course of more rounded stones had been placed around the base of the wall to define the funerary area. A conical object of carved stone lay somewhere in the burial zone.

The body was stretched out on its back on the floor of the tomb, and the face was covered by three large gold leaf masks

Death mask

In Western cultures a death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits...

, one on top of the other. In the neck area were tubular gold beads and little gold birds, together with necklaces of coloured stone beads, carved emerald

Emerald

Emerald is a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness...

s and red [Spondylus] shell, and enough tiny stone beads to form a string about 50 m long. Gold beads were found in the neck area and in a single row on the chest. A sheet-gold mask concealed the feet of the corpse. The published accounts also list two pendant-plaques and two plaques for sewing onto textiles. A set of bone tubes (or cylindrical beads) found just below the waist may have been attached to a loincloth or kilt like those represented on miniature gold figurines, and the legs of the skeleton were separated by a line of rock crystal beads. In a niche in the wall above the head of the corpse were two Ilama-style pots: one a bowl with four feet and the other an alcarraza (a vessel with two spouts joined by a bridge handle) in the form of a recumbent woman. A layer of between fifty and one hundred stone slabs of various sizes covered and protected the entire funerary deposit (Bray 2000:96-97).

Malagana Treasure Preserved

Prior to 1939 the gold objects that treasure hunters removed illegally from archaeological sites were either taken to the bank to be exchanged for cash or were sold to gallery owners and dealers in art and antiquities. The gold purchased by the bank was melted down. The items acquired by the galleries and dealers were resold to private collectors, museums, and other institutions, many of which were destined for other countries. In 1939 a man named Julio Caro convinced the board of the Banco de la República in Bogotá that the gold items should be preserved and retained within Colombia. The gold artifacts that were accumulated were kept in the bank's boardroom and, from 1947 to 1959, were shown only to important visitors. In 1959 the bank constructed a new building, which contained a long room in the basement lined with showcases displaying the artifacts. For the first time the public was permitted to see the golden treasures of the past. When another new building for the bank was under construction in 1970, several individuals associated with the bank promoted the idea of making it into a first-class scientific museum for the exhibition of their collection. Museum experts and anthropologists were called in to bring order and cultural milieu to the exhibits. Upon completion of the four-storied, prism-shaped Museo del Oro building, the treasures of the Malagana culture and the other cultures of Colombia received the finest of accommodations for their preservation and for the enlightenment of present and future generations

In 2004, the Museo del Oro launched the first of a three-stage renovation to its facilities and exhibits. When the project is completed in 2007, the treasures will be displayed with the latest, state-of-the-art techniques. One of the goals of the renovations is to communicate to the viewer the lives of the objects and their makers in the most effective way possible (Banco de la República, 2005b).

Some of the gold artifacts were recently displayed in the United States. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., presented an exhibit entitled "The Spirit of Ancient Colombia Gold" from November 9, 2005, through April 9, 2006. A total of 280 gold objects were loaned from the Museo del Oro of Bogotá for the exhibition. A funerary mask, made of hammered-sheet gold in the Malagana style and dating between 200 BC and 200 AD, is depicted on the Smithsonian Institution's webpage announcing the exhibit (Smithsonian Institution 2005).
Sometime between 200 BC and AD 200, the Malagana treasure was laid with respect in tombs in a cemetery near Hacienda Malagana. In 1992 the major portion of these treasures were ripped from their earthen resting places and were melted or transported to unknown places. Now, the few examples that remain of the Malagana treasure, along with artifacts of its neighboring cultures, are once again under the control of their home country and housed with respect. The treasure inspires its makers' descendants and the rest of the world with a sense of awe and utmost esteem for the craftsmen and culture of its origin.