This year marks a historic milestone for Colombia as the nation celebrates 50 years since the official archaeological rediscovery of the ancient Teyuna settlement, popularly known as Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City) of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
The anniversary commemorates the 1976 expedition that transformed the site from a target for looters into one of the most protected and significant cultural treasures in the Western Hemisphere.
The landmark mission was led by a specialized commission including archaeologists Luisa Fernanda Herrera and Gilberto Cadavid, architect and writer Bernardo Valderrama, and local guides Franky Rey and “el Negro” Rodríguez.
Scavengers also destroyed the lost City’s architecture
The journey through the dense tropical rainforest of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta was so physically demanding that archaeologist Lucia Rojas de Perdomo, a key member of the team, was forced to halt her progress at a nearby farm after suffering severe injuries to her feet.
Before this formal scientific expedition, the site, officially designated as Buritaca 200, was being systematically stripped by local looters known as guaqueros. Many of them almost ruined the structure of the lost city of the Sierra Nevada.
These individuals had spent years excavating the ruins for gold and ceramics and even attempted to negotiate a partnership with the Colombian government to use helicopters for transporting heavy artifacts. The state’s refusal to cooperate with the looters and its subsequent launch of a formal archaeological program are credited with saving the city’s architectural integrity.
Colombia’s Lost City of Sierra Nevada is older than Machu Picchu
The city was built by the Tairona civilization around 800 C.E., making it roughly 650 years older than Peru’s Machu Picchu. The site features an extraordinary display of ancient engineering, consisting of 169 stone terraces carved into the mountainside to provide stable foundations for homes.
Visitors must navigate a steep climb of over 1,200 stone steps to reach the central platforms, which are connected by a sophisticated network of tiled roads and drainage systems designed to withstand the region’s intense tropical climate.
Managed today by the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH), the site remains a living sanctuary for the Kogi, Wiwa, Arhuaco, and Kankuamo indigenous peoples. These descendant communities consider the city a sacred ancestral home and collaborate with the government to manage tourism through seasonal closures intended for spiritual cleansing and environmental recovery.