Tierradentro

Tierradentro (meaning "Underground" in Spanish for their well-known tombs) is one of the ancient Pre-Columbian cultures of Colombia. It started to flourish around 200 BC in the mountains of southwest Colombia, and continued into the 17th century. The Tierradentro culture is particularly well known for its dense collection of elaborate pre-Columbian hypogea. It is considered part of San Agustín culture rather than a separate culture.

The typical Tierradentro hypogeum has an entry oriented towards the west, a spiral staircase and a main chamber, usually 5 to 8 meters below the surface, with several lesser chambers around, each one containing a corpse. The walls are painted with geometric, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic patterns in red, black and white. Some statues and remains of pottery and fabrics can be seen scarcely due to grave robbery before the hypogea were constituted as protected areas. The details in the sculptures and pictorial patterns in the hypogea are similar to the neighboring San Agustín culture, although they occur at much higher density.