The Abandonment of the Idols

Tattered plastic coverings to ruins of last Christmas make an ugly backdrop to replicas of San Agustin monuments 

Bike tourists walk past a fallen idol.

A few years ago, the Los Martires neighborhood filled a small park behind the Central Cemetery with reproductions of the famous and mysterious monuments near the town of San Agustin, in southern Colombia. It was a nice idea, altho this poor and socially troubled part of the city is not likely to become a tourist mecca anytime soon.

Sadly, however, the park has not been maintained. Monuments knocked over by children lie on the grass, like dethroned gods. And, adding insult to injury, after building a huge Christmas display in the park, local government workers simply left parts of the display in the park, covered with disintegrating foam sheets, perhaps until next Christmas.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Absent Idols

Empty spots wait for monuments in the National Museum.

To commemorate a century of arqueological investigations in San Agustin, the National Museum has an exhibit on about the storied monuments. The exhibition includes images and lots of historical and anthropological information - but no monuments, or even reproductions of them.

Their absence is due to opposition by San Agustin area residents, who blocked the temporary transfer of some monuments to Bogotá, fearing that they could be damaged or not returned. The museum describes the locals' attitude as selfish. But the Sanagustinianos remember well that dozens of San Agustin statues were taken away in the early 1900s and remain in storage in Gemany.

The San Agustin monuments, located in Huila Department near the town of San Agustin, were created between about the time of Christ and 900 a.d. According to the museum exhibition, they may have been created by several different cultures. Nobody's sure what the figures represent or who created them, but climate change apparently played a key role in the cultural flowering and decline. According to the exhibition, the great period of monument building coincided with a time of abundant rainfall and good harvests.

An artist's rendering of an indigenous man
before the arrival of the Spanish.

The Sanagustianos' insistance on controlling the statues also suggests some questions about ownership of natural and artistic resources. There's no evidence that the people now living near the monuments are related to the ancient monuments' creators. So, why should they have any more right to control the monuments than someone from Bogotá, Medellin, or even New York? In this sense, are ancient monuments any different from gold or coal deposits? Nobody put them there, either?

In any case, those interested in seeing San Agustin monuments in Bogotá can visit replicas in the Los Martires district. 

Information about European and Colombian writing and research about the monuments. 

Altho the first Europeans visited the area in the 1530s and described the monuments, German ethnologist Konrad Theodor Preuss is considered to have done the first investigations in 1913.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Who Bagged Carlos Martínez Silva?

Bagged, man! Suffering Carlos Martinez Silva in Parque de la Independencia.

Recently during bike tours, several people have asked why this man, great enough to be immortalized in stone in the Parque de la Independencia, was wearing a black plastic bag over his head.

We pass by these stone heads every day. Undoubtedly famous back in their time, they're now been practically mummified in marble. This question pulled this particular stone man out of anonymity  for me - but didn't provide any solid answer.

Carlos Martinez Silva back in
the days when nobody would
have dared put a bag over his head.

It turns out that Carlos Martínez Silva (1847-1903) was quite an accomplished fellow: A writer, military leader, journalist and diplomat (he led a group which tried to negotiate a deal to dig the Panama Canal back in the 1880s, when Panama was still Colombia's. If the deal had succeeded, Panama would likely still be Colombian today, and Colombia would possess lots more global geopolitical and economic importance.

Martinez Silva was also a hard-line Conservative, which could be a clue to his bagging. The Conservative-Liberal political divide was the fault line which cut thru Colombian during most of its history, generating several civil wars, as well as heated elections. Martinez Silva so represented the Conservative side, that the Liberals imprisoned him for several months during the Thousand-Day War.

Martinez Silva served as dean of the very Catholic Rosario University, in La Candelaria. There, he earned the nickname 'Torquemada,' after a notoriously conservative Spanish inquisitor who burned thousands of heretics, Jews and Moslems at the stake.

This isn't the first time that a memorial to Martinez Silva has suffered such an indignity. In 1996, a stone bust in his birthplace of San Gil was decapitated by a teenager. 

Could century-old resentments have motivated somebody today to bag Martinez Silva's stone head? Or, was his bust in Independence park just a convenient symbol of authority?

Only the bagger knows.

A few other noteworthy monuments in Bogotá:

Francisco de Trujillo, in the National Park. A Spanish explorer and conquistador, he's remembered for having 'discovered' the Amazon River - even tho many people already lived along it. 

Vladimir Lenin, in the 'Lenin Plaza' on the National University's campus. Lenin looks self-important, but none-too-happy, perhaps because his ideas have lost favor nearly everywhere except this little corner of La Nacho in Bogotá.

Ricardo Palma, on Avenida Jimenez, in front of the Las Aguas Church. Palma was an accomplished Peruvian writer. But I'd like to know what he's doing in the center of Bogotá.

Gabriel Betancur Silva, beside the Las Aguas TransMilenio station. This is one of Bogotá's newest statues. This genial-looking man brought student loans to Colombia. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours