Death and emotions in the Cercado Grande de los Santuarios, Tunja (Colombia), Late Muisca period (1000 - 1550 CE)

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Published: Sep 1, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21676/16574923.5707
Keywords:
mortuary practices, archaeothanatology, Cercado Grande de los Santuarios, muisca societies, archaeology of emotion

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Melissa Pratt
Universidad Externado de Colombia
https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4685-7973

Abstract

The Cercado Grande de los Santuarios is an archaeological site located in Tunja, on the grounds currently occupied by the Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia (UPTC). Ever since the first archaeological studies, the mortuary variability of the Cercado was analyzed to explore the sociopolitical organization of the muisca chiefdoms, and to identify the changes in mortuary patterns between the Herrera and Late Muisca periods. This paper presents a preliminary approach to the understanding of little-known aspects of the commemoration of death in muisca societies, such as the agency and emotions of the individuals who gathered in a solemn and transcendental moment to ritualize the loss of a social being. Its purpose is to explore, through the ideas that have emerged in the contemporary perspectives of the archaeology of death, the ways in which the emotions of the living affect and transform the course of mortuary practices. An archaeothanatological analysis was implemented, using the photographic record of three burials from the Cercado, that were excavated by INERCO between 2019-2020, to discuss, through the lens of the archaeology of emotion, the attitudes towards death in muisca societies, such as the exclusivity of primary inhumations and the presence/absence of grave goods. The results show that the emotion of the mourners is one of the variables that affects the nature and appearance of the material culture of death, and, in that sense, the discussion establishes the need to expand the range of possibilities to interpret funerary contexts, through new epistemological structures and methodologies that have been developed during the last decades in the archaeological thought.

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How to Cite
Pratt, M. (2024). Death and emotions in the Cercado Grande de los Santuarios, Tunja (Colombia), Late Muisca period (1000 - 1550 CE). Jangwa Pana, 23(3). https://doi.org/10.21676/16574923.5707
Issue
Vol. 23 No. 3 (2024): Revista Jangwa Pana
Section
General Section

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