Piedras del tunjo archaeological park report

Angel Otalora
Archaeology
On August 28th, the archaeology first semester group of Externado University, went
to the piedras Del tunjo archaeological park in Facatativa, near to Bogota DC, in
Colombia.
In the park, we went to a tour in the park, were we had seen the pictographs in
multiple sedimentary rocks in all the park, which some of the pictographs were poorly
conserved, and there was a lot of scratches and graffiti and others acts of vandalism
in the park, in the tour were got explained the forms of conservation that were used
to conserved the pictographs of the park, and the archaeological context of the park.
The materials that were used to make the pictographs was yellow and red pigments,
usually hematite, that were painted in sandstone, after being painted, the rock get
weathers by getting solidify in silicates, that preserved the pictographs in a layer of
silicate, that protect the pictograph of the environment, the designs of some
pictographs are geometrical doodles, usually as rhombus shape, also it have
animals shapes like frogs and bats, the archaeologists believe that some of the
pictographs are part of territorial marks of different tribes in the zone.
One of the problems of the park was that the park before being an archaeological
park, the place was a recreational park which usually people used to go and make
barbecued on weekends or holidays, which the human interact accelerated the
destruction of the pictographs, also the majority of the rocks have a lot of scratches
and graffiti which had destroyed a good part of the pictographs, and other part of the
stones had weathered some of those graffiti and scratches, make it more hard to
remove those doodles from the vandalized stones, usually to remove the newest
graffiti, it used a sandblasting machine, to remove some graffiti, but if the shot is
made wrong, it also can erased the pictographs, also some of the problems are that
is hard to date the pictographs, because is impossible to take a sample of the
pictograph due to the weathering of the stone, and because there only few countries
in Latin America that can date the pictographs, like Mexico, Argentina and Brazil,
and because there few conservators in Colombia, the pictographs can be only
conserved by stopping the damage, but it can`t be fully restored, make it more hard
to preserve than others pictographs because there exposed to the environment,
make it them more vulnerable than other pictographs.
In conclusion, to be an archaeological park, is poorly conserved, and is harder to
preserved with the expansion of the urbanization near to it, and with few
conservators to protect it, and it may have more pictographs in the town of facatativa
that it may disappear, and even is part of the culture of the town, with the few effort
to protect it and preserve it, it may have only few pictographs in the future, that would
lost all the effort to protect it.