Ciudad Perdida, Spanish for "lost city" and also known as Teyuna and Buritaca-200, is the archaeological site of an ancient city in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta of Colombia, within the jurisdiction of the municipality of Santa Marta.
View of the central area of the city.
The Enigmatic Origins and Construction
Built around 800 CE, Ciudad Perdida was most likely the region's political and manufacturing center on the Buritaca River and may have housed 2,000-8,000 people. The site was originally inhabited by the Tairona people. Indigenous peoples had established advanced communities 1,500 years before the Spanish arrived. These communities were connected by stone paths, which facilitated the exchange of food and products of gold, stone, and clay.
Ciudad Perdida consists of a series of 169 terraces carved into the mountainside, a network of tiled roads, and several small circular plazas. If so, Ciudad Perdida predates Machu Picchu by about 650 years.
Daily Life and Sustenance of the Tairona People
The inhabitants took advantage of the rich variety of foods and resources available in this mountainous region near the sea. They had gardens to grow vegetables such as tomatoes and corn, and fruits such as avocado, guanabana, pineapple, and guava. Due to their close proximity to the ocean, they obtained a large variety of seafood. Indigenous children learned stories and legends from elders and learned to create fabrics to make clothes and mochilas.
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Although they are generally referred to as the "Tairona people", there were many groups and settlements spread across the mountains and beaches in distinct, smaller communities (polities) all trading and working together. The Tairona people, much like the Kogi people today, were not violent people. The Kogi believe in kindness and equality.
La Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) | Global Heritage Fund Work at the Ruins
The Arrival of Europeans and Subsequent Conflicts
As the European colonizers settled in indigenous territory, they began enslaving the natives who fished and collected salt on the coast. The Tairona people in the mountains, dependent on the fish and salt farmed by the coastal Tairona people, told escaped enslaved Tairona members to return and bring the Europeans gifts of gold to appease them. The Europeans took the gold but were not appeased and became more hostile to the natives.
The effects of the conquistador's colonization of their villages are still seen today. As the years passed, the Europeans took more and more of the gold originally crafted by the indigenous people. The Kogi people live in the last pre-Columbian settlement and have more-or-less kept the ways of the Tairona people since they were forced out of their settlements by the conquistadors. Although the Kogi can provide insight into the Tairona, they are distinct from the people who lived 500 years ago.
Rediscovery and Looting
Around 1970, some farmers who colonized the lower part of the Sierra Nevada, up to approximately 700 meters above sea level, learned of the possibilities of finding great treasures. Los Sepúlvedas were a small family of looters living in Colombia. The family often went hunting in the forests, and one day they shot a wild turkey. While retrieving the turkey, they noticed it had fallen on a series of stone steps rising up the mountainside.
They climbed up the stone steps and discovered an abandoned city, which they named "Green Hell" or "Wide Set". Soon after, gold figures and ceramic urns from Ciudad Perdida began to appear on the local black market. This alerted archaeologists, and a team led by the director of the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología, reached the site in 1976.
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Location map of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
The guaqueros went deeper and deeper into the Sierra until, in 1973, one of them, Julio César Sepúlveda, arrived at the lost city and began to loot it. Almost simultaneously, another guaquero, Jorge Restrepo, along with his men arrived in Teyuna and dedicated himself to looting. The two sides clashed and the two leaders died in the bloody combat. History repeated itself.
Modern Challenges: Conflict and Preservation
During the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, due to the boom of drug traffic and contraband, FARC and ELN settled in the zone, creating routes and armies and using forced taxation with the communities as well. During this time, a peace treaty with the government was in the making for demobilization; however, this allowed for other guerilla groups that were not part of the treaty to get stronger and united; around the same time, right-wing paramilitary groups invaded the region El Mamey, in the north of Ciudad Perdida, creating instability, in the area and a wave of violence between all armed forces.
On 15 September 2003, the ELN kidnapped eight foreign tourists visiting Ciudad Perdida, demanding a government investigation into human rights abuses in exchange for their hostages. The ELN released the last of the hostages three months later. The AUC continued attacking aborigines and non-aborigines in the zone.
Efforts Towards Preservation and Ecotourism
The Kogi believe that everything buried in La Ciudad Perdida contributes to the peace, harmony, and balance of the world. After teaching one of their members Spanish, they presented this case to the Colombian government and successfully reclaimed the rights to their ancestral land.
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In the search to create, develop, plan, project, research, and protect the area with conservation and preservation plans, settlement of inter-institutional cooperation no. 008 was established between national parks (PNN) and the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH); this Indigenous management plan model allows Colombian Sierra Nevada and the Indigenous populations to receive environmental, regional, and international benefits. PNN has developed ecotourism strategies to preserve natural resources in accordance with the "parques con la gente" (parks with the people) policy for active social interaction.
Nowadays, this has allowed for the inclusion of larger committees such as the Department of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, PNN, and the Indigenous reservation Kogui-Malayo-Arhuaco, in which they study the tourist occupancy in Teyuna "Ciudad Perdida," does not negatively impact any environmental and cultural aspect. In 2005, tourist hikes became operational again and there have been no problems since then.
Since 2009, the non-profit organization Global Heritage Fund (GHF) has been working in Ciudad Perdida to preserve and protect the historic site against climate, vegetation, neglect, looting, and unsustainable tourism.
Key Historical Periods of Ciudad Perdida
| Period | Description |
|---|---|
| 800 CE | Construction and habitation by the Tairona people. |
| 1500s | Impact of Spanish colonization and retreat of indigenous communities. |
| 1970s | Rediscovery by looters and subsequent archaeological interest. |
| 1980s-1990s | Influence of drug trafficking and armed conflict in the region. |
| 2000s-Present | Focus on preservation, ecotourism, and indigenous rights. |
Although La Ciudad Perdida is an impressive site, it is not the only one of its kind. Only about 30-40% of the sites in the Sierra Nevada region have been explored.
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