Talk:Quimbaya artifacts

showed that their models [...] could fly
Everything can fly if it's light enough and with enough power... This proves nothing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sphks (talk • contribs) 16:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Citation 2 is a poor choice. It's poorly formed opinion at best. The knowledge of early aircraft construction displayed in this cited blog is substantially lacking. The summary of citation two comments on the statistical significance, or lack thereof, regarding the unexplained remainder is trite. All it takes to prove a theory wrong is one instance, that is the statistically significant number. I ask that it be removed as a citation due to it's inappropriateness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.197.10.64 (talk) 02:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a stylized Bull shark to me, with exaggerated frontal fins, rectal fins and the typical asymmetrical tail fin. Anything hydrodynamically adapted such as a shark, will also "fly" in air — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.227.33.198 (talk) 22:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

It's unlikely that we'll ever find hard evidence to determine exactly what they represented, so discussion of that here is somewhat unhelpful. Some interesting facts that would be useful to have added to this page would be when and where they were discovered (and by whom). On I read "“The so-called Quimbaya Treasure was looted in 1890 from two tombs in the site of La Soledad, near the Municipality of Filandia (Quindío Department, Colombia), amidst the Central Cauca Valley” (Perea. 2013. 2.1)." and on other pages that they are located in Gold Museum in Bogotá, Colombia and other museums around the world, but I don't have any way of verifying any of this. Can anyone help with more verifiable info please? JohnGH (talk) 17:45, 13 July 2016 (UTC) : JohnGH: If you speak spanish, look here. Though job. --Marc-AntoineV (talk) 16:19, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

More info


If you look at Talk:Quimbaya artifacts there's a question by an editor no longer around about the location of these artefacts. Sadly the article itself concentrates on fringe claims. However, on the talk page there's a link to a pdf which might be useful at least for the location if not more. Any chance you can help? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 18:30, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. The intro talks about the "cultural identity" of the region, but starting page 641 it talks about the artifacts. Let me get back to you with more information once I read through it in more detail. MX ( ✉  •  ✎  ) 19:05, 21 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Just read through the entire article. There is some information you might find useful. In pages 641–644, it explains that in 1891, the artifacts were discovered by guaqueros (a South American slang used to describe people who "sack" pre-Colombian tombs in search of riches to sell off). The author says that the exact details surrounding the discovery are "unknown".
 * The artifacts were found in the Colombian municipalities of Quimbaya and Filandia (in a site known as La Soledad). The artifacts were described as "extremely high quality" gold and bronze (tumbaga) objects. The author suspects that their high-quality attributes may have been the reason why these artifacts were not melted (per the author, melting gold/bronze was a common practice in the pre-Colombian era). The name "Tesoro Quimbaya" (Quimbaya Teasure) derives from the name of the indigenous group that lived in the area, the Quimbayas, 1,500 years prior.


 * When the artifacts were discovered in 1891, Colombia was going through a period of "historical reconstruction"; the government was interested in rebuilding its indigenous past and searching for artifacts from the pre-Colombian era (the author says this was stemmed from the Romanticism movement). The Colombian government donated 122 artifacts to Spain in 1892 as part of the IV Centenary Celebration of the Discovery of America (Spanish Wikipedia here). The government explained that they donated these artifacts as gratitude for Spain's assistance in defining the border between Colombia and Venezuela, among other reasons (not described). These artifacts were displayed in Madrid and Chicago and were intended to be a gift for the Spanish royal family.


 * The author considers the repatriation of these artifacts as "unconstitutional", and accuses the Colombian government under Carlos Holguín Mallarino of specifically violating clause No. 76.11 of Political Constitution of Colombia (1886), which stated that the government could not donote/gift national assets without popular election. He also cited clauses 76.18 and 120.20, which required the government to get approval from Congress when doing agreements with other countries (in this case, Spain).


 * In 2008, a Colombian lawyer named Felipe Rincón Salgado issued a "popular action" (Spanish Wikipedia here) in a Bogotá court asking the government to start a formal process to get the artifacts repatriated back to Colombia in 3 months. The request was denied in 2011, after a Cundinamarca court considered that issuing a popular action was not the correct method for demonstrating the illegality of the donation. They also argued that the donation was not illegal at the time it was done because it was not considered a "national heritage" when it was gifted. A Colombian constitutional court rejected the Cundinamarca court decision soon thereafter, arguing that such restrictions diminished the power of popular action, and that the time of the violation did not absolve the government if the donation is illegal in the present. There is yet to be a resolution on the case, but the author believes that the repatriation is favorable.


 * Please feel free to reach out if you have more questions or need assistance. MX ( ✉  •  ✎  ) 20:21, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Article as a whole
This article does not even seem to be about the title. The image is quite unrelated. The artefacts are small gold objects that look like things that fly, not a helmet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.124.206 (talk) 21:06, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Some sources
Biology, Cultivation and Applications of Mushrooms pp 487–496 ChapterThe Tolimas and the Mushroom: Mycolatry in Pre-Hispanic Colombia Juan Camilo Rodriguez Martinez - discusses flying animals.

The Quimbayas and mushrooms: A fertility cult of frogs and mushrooms related to a goddess among the Quimbayas in prehispanic Colombia Juan Camilo Rodríguez Martínez - very good general discussion. Wikipedia library has it Doug Weller  talk 13:32, 24 August 2023 (UTC)