La Ciudad Perdida, "The Lost City", also known as Teyuna or Buritaca, is located in the Magdalena Department of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, South America, and has the GPS coordinates 11°2′16.79″N 73°55′30.69″W. It predates Machu Picchu in Peru by many centuries and has one of the most magnificent ancient megalithic stones we have seen.
The Global Heritage Fund (GHF) in partnership with the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History are involved with the management, documentation, and conservation of the Teyuna-Ciudad Perdida Archaeological Park.
Archaeology magazine, Volume 57 Number 5, September/October 2004, has an article by Toby Muse titled Lost City, who writes about Ciudad Perdida that the native inhabitants of the region, the Tairona (also written "the Tayronas"), call the center of their extremely remote 15000 square mile area in the Sierra Nevada "Teyuna", "the HEART of the world", even though its first modern discoverers called it a "green hell" for its ever-present mosquitoes, thick impenetrable jungles, and densely covered steep mountains.
Even today tourists can not get to the "Lost City" independently but only as part of organized ca. 4-to-5-day hiking tours, which reportedly cover anywhere from 23 kilometers to 44 kilometers of extremely tough jungle hiking, including river crossings and very steep terrain. Suited only for the very fit!
At Ucros Travel, which also has some marvelous photographs, it is written:
See also http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YAEL_PHOTOS_898.jpg, which appears to be a similar stone at a different location in Ciudad Perdida.
Ciudad Perdida also has a fantastic megalithic "sky map stone". See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YAEL_PHOTOS_819.jpg.
That megalith is currently thought to have been a "local" map of the region, created using a "slashed line" stone marking technique also found in the Pacific Northwest, e.g. in Oregon (name origin via "Virgo", so we allege) and Alaska.
Note that in Inupiaq Eskimo language an inuksuk was "a native Alaskan cairn built to mark pathways". See Behind the Name. On one level that is what the ancient land survey of Native America by astronomy was all about.
The Ciudad Perdida Megalith of Colombia, South America suggests that Ciudad Perdida (marking Corvus as a heart) was the top of the stone and that the megalith was marked as a sky map of stars of the southern hemisphere. See photos of the stone by Stan James and Yael Zwighaft of YAEL-PHOTOS, 2008 at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YAEL_PHOTOS_819.jpg.
This has to be one of the most spectacular of all the megaliths we have thus far seen, apparently carved in the shape of a human head, with the top of the head as the stars of Centaurus and the chin fairly clear, but with asymmetrical star-mandated positioning.
We see the eyes at Volans and Musca, the cheek at Carina, the nose at Mensa and the mouth at Reticulum, which then makes LMC, the Large Magellanic Cloud the moustache. Obviously, the ancients created these anthropomorphic figures in the stones to mark the stars and to make it easier to remember them, just as we do today with the stellar constellations.
We found the Colombian and Alaskan megaliths by following an "idealized" diagonal line of land survey by astronomy that runs northwest to Alaska from the Herschel Petroglyphs and southeast from the Herschel Petroglyphs through Cahokia to the Miami Circle and approximately through Ciudad Perdida, and then on to the far east coast of South America. We think that this line could be marked as one of two lines marked at the bottom of the Cahokia Birdman Tablet that are perpendicular to the ca. seven horizontal levels found there, which mark the main horizontal survey levels on land in North America. We will post about how that land survey may have looked in a coming posting.
We emphasize again that the ancients may not have used totally straight lines in doing their astronomical land surveys, but rather line and/or angle approximations that were guided by measurements of the stars, Earth topography, resulting Indian trails and other practical considerations. Nevertheless, such lines are useful for analysis in practice for us in doing the decipherments. Exactly what the ancients did still remains open.
THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 109 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America
"Heart of the World" at La Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City of Colombia, South America, Marks the Stars of Corvus and Also Has a Southern Hemisphere Sky Map Megalith
The Global Heritage Fund (GHF) in partnership with the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History are involved with the management, documentation, and conservation of the Teyuna-Ciudad Perdida Archaeological Park.
Archaeology magazine, Volume 57 Number 5, September/October 2004, has an article by Toby Muse titled Lost City, who writes about Ciudad Perdida that the native inhabitants of the region, the Tairona (also written "the Tayronas"), call the center of their extremely remote 15000 square mile area in the Sierra Nevada "Teyuna", "the HEART of the world", even though its first modern discoverers called it a "green hell" for its ever-present mosquitoes, thick impenetrable jungles, and densely covered steep mountains.
Even today tourists can not get to the "Lost City" independently but only as part of organized ca. 4-to-5-day hiking tours, which reportedly cover anywhere from 23 kilometers to 44 kilometers of extremely tough jungle hiking, including river crossings and very steep terrain. Suited only for the very fit!
At Ucros Travel, which also has some marvelous photographs, it is written:
"Lost City Colombia - Ciudad Perdida was discovered in 1976 by a team of archaeologists from the Colombian Institute of Anthropology led by Gilberto Cadavid Luisa Fernanda Herrera.... Recent (2006) Archaeological investigations at the site indicate that this town was founded around 660 AD and abandoned sometime between 1550 and 1600 AD.... It is known as Teyuna by Indians...."According to our analysis of the ancient land survey of Native America by astronomy, the Lost City of Santa Marta represented the stars of Corvus seen as a "heart", as evidenced in the large arguably "heart"-sculpted stone at the main location of the site. Perhaps these stones were at some time also viewed as a toad, or frog, as seen in those or neighboring stars by Inca cosmology.
The Ciudad Perdida, Colombia, South America
Corvus Heart Stone
See also http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YAEL_PHOTOS_898.jpg, which appears to be a similar stone at a different location in Ciudad Perdida.
Ciudad Perdida also has a fantastic megalithic "sky map stone". See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YAEL_PHOTOS_819.jpg.
That megalith is currently thought to have been a "local" map of the region, created using a "slashed line" stone marking technique also found in the Pacific Northwest, e.g. in Oregon (name origin via "Virgo", so we allege) and Alaska.
Note that in Inupiaq Eskimo language an inuksuk was "a native Alaskan cairn built to mark pathways". See Behind the Name. On one level that is what the ancient land survey of Native America by astronomy was all about.
The Ciudad Perdida Megalith of Colombia, South America suggests that Ciudad Perdida (marking Corvus as a heart) was the top of the stone and that the megalith was marked as a sky map of stars of the southern hemisphere. See photos of the stone by Stan James and Yael Zwighaft of YAEL-PHOTOS, 2008 at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:YAEL_PHOTOS_819.jpg.
This has to be one of the most spectacular of all the megaliths we have thus far seen, apparently carved in the shape of a human head, with the top of the head as the stars of Centaurus and the chin fairly clear, but with asymmetrical star-mandated positioning.
We see the eyes at Volans and Musca, the cheek at Carina, the nose at Mensa and the mouth at Reticulum, which then makes LMC, the Large Magellanic Cloud the moustache. Obviously, the ancients created these anthropomorphic figures in the stones to mark the stars and to make it easier to remember them, just as we do today with the stellar constellations.
The La Ciudad Perdida, Colombia, South America
Southern Hemisphere Sky Map Megalith
(click the graphic for a larger image)
We found the Colombian and Alaskan megaliths by following an "idealized" diagonal line of land survey by astronomy that runs northwest to Alaska from the Herschel Petroglyphs and southeast from the Herschel Petroglyphs through Cahokia to the Miami Circle and approximately through Ciudad Perdida, and then on to the far east coast of South America. We think that this line could be marked as one of two lines marked at the bottom of the Cahokia Birdman Tablet that are perpendicular to the ca. seven horizontal levels found there, which mark the main horizontal survey levels on land in North America. We will post about how that land survey may have looked in a coming posting.
We emphasize again that the ancients may not have used totally straight lines in doing their astronomical land surveys, but rather line and/or angle approximations that were guided by measurements of the stars, Earth topography, resulting Indian trails and other practical considerations. Nevertheless, such lines are useful for analysis in practice for us in doing the decipherments. Exactly what the ancients did still remains open.
THIS POSTING IS Posting Number 109 of
The Great Mound, Petroglyph and Painted Rock Art Journey of Native America
"Heart of the World" at La Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City of Colombia, South America, Marks the Stars of Corvus and Also Has a Southern Hemisphere Sky Map Megalith