The first lines begin at 158 meters deep. In an instant, the mind illuminates as the headlamps stop focusing on the floor to banish the darkness clinging to the walls. In slow motion, an incredible vault that opens above … us like a sky of rock. Then, following the shapes, trying to guess the meaning, the questions appear: how did they get here? Was this space a ceremonial chamber? What did they paint the stone with? There they are, figures and lines of intense black color, some others a little erased by the centuries, but present. They are trying to tell us something.
There are no answers yet. But all these questions and more have been asked by Carlos Lasso Alcalá the times he has visited this 210 meter deep cavern or “development” and that we visited to do the mapping with the help of the geologist-spelunker Gonzalo Valdivieso. This researcher from the Humboldt Institute, with an accent between Andalusian and Caribbean, specializes in everything that cannot be seen, which makes him the great expert in ecosystems of underground rivers, submerged caves and aquifers in Colombia, although the profession of this Spaniard from Birth took him first to Venezuela, where he was a researcher for many years, and from there he made the leap to this country 15 years ago.
Always on the move, Lasso now seems to be trapped by this cavern. «There are few paintings, but very significant for several reasons: first, they are made with charcoal and, second, to get there, at that depth, they had to spend a long time, delve with torches or lamps with oil or wax or guacharo bait. , some material that they used then,” says the biologist-spelunker. Few but impressive, very different from the rich universe of rock art of Chiribiquete, the Sistine Chapel of the Amazon, which is in Colombia and in 2018 was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Because if Chiribiquete dazzles, this cave illuminates the thought. Or at least the imagination.
If leaving the caves was not easy for humans; returning to them is no less difficult. Going through this was a slow process due to the complete darkness and the need to illuminate the passage due to the quantity and variety of sizes of stones and shapes that are on the ground. It was not quick to get to the mouth of the cave either, after climbing and opening up the mountain, six hours of travel between Bogotá and Barbosa, three hours of Jeep travel along trails to reach the path from which the expedition would depart. In addition, it took us time to prepare beforehand: a coffee to bring energy, special suits for the occasion, masks, helmets, gloves, lights, devices, backpacks and protective measures to avoid the dreaded histoplasmosis. Ready, the first obligatory step: light a cigar, ask permission from the souls who guard not only the entrance with its snakes, bats and bowers, but everything inside, which has nothing to do with El Dorado, fantasy of guaqueros and thieves.
And there another question arises: who made them? The first touches are given by anthropologist Fernando Montejo Gaitán, coordinator of the Heritage group of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, and who will soon travel with Professor Lasso to see these records up close and begin the technical analysis of what is there. «One of the key themes is the chronology of those paintings, I presume of charcoal, made with the same fire with which they arrived at that place. That must have been a tremendous challenge then because there is no way to access it in complete darkness. And about the inhabitants and possible authors, he adds: «In archeology we usually classify paintings by geometric lines and figures; This has coherence in the regions, but this has not been recorded archaeologically and we do not have the scientific report of the context; We only know that there are bone and ceramic remains used for everyday life or rituals. “Now we move on to characterization and define management measures.”
Lasso has his own investigations, which coincide with the relevance given by Fernando Gaitán and help provide perspective. «The first fact to highlight – says Lasso – is that, in South America, the only record that we knew about pictographs or rock art inside caves in areas with total darkness corresponded to the Brazilian Amazon, where petroglyphs and paintings were discovered in the deepest area of a cave in Ruropolis, Pará. For this reason, this discovery in Santander would be the first for Colombia and the second for South America.
Despite the uniqueness of this cavern, when we stop in front of the pictograms there is something that seems familiar. We already have certain strokes and the composition of some figures codified, as heirs of pre-Columbian cultures; We sense the spirals and we can capture human figures with ornaments typical of chiefs, in addition to the fascinating geometry and volume that we can sense. «The rock art that we saw shows some similarity with that recorded by the Guans in the Chicamocha canyon and Suárez River – known as Xerirense Rock Art –, but it has its own peculiarities such as the exclusive use of the color black and a greater representation of anthropomorphic figures. in a process of transmutation or transformation towards the geometric. The representation of the latter is clear. I dare say it is unique, perhaps with ceremonial, mystical, cosmological purposes and a magical-religious background, which involved detailed preparation. Soon anthropologists and carbon 14 will give us more clues and some truths.
For now, returning to the caves is no longer a rhetorical figure: it is a necessity. In their deep darkness they shed light on the past and on that underground universe – without eyes, without so much color and silence – that seems to support with the thin legs or tiny bodies of its inhabitants the visible and bustling world that tries to survive above.
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