Antes del alfabeto

Although there aren't written records of the Muysccubun indigenous language, rock art in the Bogotá region in Colombia shows repeated signs that suggest a form of hieroglyph writing. Sadly, colonization fragmented this system of knowledge and expression. The hieroglyphs in this work speak of Bachué's myth—the woman who emerged from lake Iguaque with a kid. When he grew up, she married him and her births were so prolific that they populated the earth. When they grew old, they went back to the lake turned into snakes. Rock art is a form of narration, not with letters on paper, but with painting and engravings over rocks. The muysca petroglyphs are grouped on rocks. In this piece, the symbols extend over the landscape to suggest an open reading in which the whole mountain turns into a book where memory was written.