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San Agustin archeological park

San Agustin archeological park

Cultural · Inscribed: 1995

Site Information

UNESCO ID
744
Category
Cultural
Country
Colombia
Inscribed
1995
Coordinates
1.8844, -76.2961

Selection Criteria

(iii)

Criteria: (iii)

Description

The San Agustín Archaeological Park (Spanish: Parque Arqueológico de San Agustín) is a large archaeological area located near the town of San Agustín in Huila Department in Colombia. The park contains the largest collection of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in Latin America and is considered the world's largest necropolis. Belonging to the San Agustin culture, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. The dates of the statues are uncertain, but they are believed to have been carved between 5–400 AD. The origin of the carvers remains a mystery, as the site is largely unexcavated.

The statues were first described by a Spanish monk, Fray Juan de Santa Gertrudis (1724–1799), who visited the countries of Colombia (then part of the New Kingdom of Granada), Ecuador and Peru in 1756–57 as a missionary. He passed through San Agustín in mid-1756, and wrote about the statues in his four-volume work Maravillas de la naturaleza (English: Wonders of Nature).

View image on Wikimedia Commons

View image on Wikimedia Commons

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