About the book:

“ The Tayrona, Sinu, Quimbaya, Calima, Tumaco, Nariño, Cauca, San Augustin, Tierradentro, Tolima and Muisca cultures are included in this study.
The possible chronology of these cultures cobres the lapse between the years 1000 DC and 1600 AC, within which each culture had a different period of duration.
The animals analyzed in this work were made of gold, ceramic, stone and bone. The book includes 500 designs, presented according to didactic layout needs, and also grouped according to the different cultures and species.
This study was realized, wishing to bring out revaluate, defend, reconsider and to analyze the qualities of the magnificient pre-Colombian art of our past, so that the Colombian people may come to know it, to assimilate it and to defend it from its depredators.”


The expectant, sleepy saurians and alligators:

“Iguanas, basilisk, alligators, lizards, chameleons, salamanders, saurians and crocodiles, these gigantic and small oviparous beasts which populated all of Colombia, most of them associated with water, covered in corrugated hides, transformers of color, that can be mutilated and still survive, lovers of light and heat, tropical sleepers. They all provide the inspiration for the mythical alligators that the Colombian art recreated over the long period of its existence through all of its ancient cultures.”

Mithological Animals
Diseño precolombino Colombiano

Investigation, design, texts and edited by Antonio Grass
Copyright Antonio Grass
Printed by Litografía Arco, 1979, Bogota, Colombia.