Although this predates the Muisca civilisation, whose onset is commonly set at 800 AD, nevertheless, some of these styles persevered through the ages.ĭuring the preceramic era, the people of the highlands produced petrographs and petroglyphs representing their deities, the abundant flora and fauna of the area, abstract motives and anthropomorphic or anthropo-zoomorphic elements. The first art in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes goes back several millennia. The Museo del Oro in the Colombian capital Bogotá houses the biggest collection of golden objects in the world, from various Colombian cultures including the Muisca. While their architecture was modest compared to the Inca, Aztec and Maya civilisations, the Muisca are best known for their skilled goldworking. Their various forms of art have been described in detail and include pottery, textiles, body art, hieroglyphs and rock art. The Muisca established one of the four grand civilisations of the pre-Columbian Americas on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in present-day central Colombia.

This article describes the art produced by the Muisca. This made trade with various neighbouring indigenous groups possible by which the Muisca obtained feathers, cotton, pigments and the vast amounts of gold and copper used for theird fine tunjos, jewelry, and other golden and tumbaga artefacts The flat Bogotá savanna, the southern territory of the Muisca Confederation, not only provided fertile agricultural lands, but also many different clays for the production of ceramics, rock shelters where petroglyphs and petrographs were made and a central strategic access to the regions around it.

Gold muisca mummy