The site

Tierradentro, whose name means "underground" in Spanish, is a necropolis of the pre-Columbian Tierradentro culture in the mountains of southwest Colombia, occupied here between roughly 600 and 900 CE. Its glory lies below the surface: dense clusters of elaborate hypogea, rock-cut tombs reached by spiral staircases descending five to eight meters to burial chambers. The walls blaze with geometric, human, and animal patterns in red, black, and white, a subterranean art that earned it World Heritage status.

Field notes

civilizations

Tierradentro

types

Hypogeum · Necropolis

occupied

600 CE — 900 CE

country

Colombia