Precision of Nicaragua's pre-Columbian sculptures surprise experts

The precision with which 15 statues from present-day Nicaragua's pre-Hispanic era were sculpted has surprised a group of experts making copies of them, said sculptor Pedro Vargas, the director of the Granada School of Fine Arts.

Basalt sculptures carved by the Chorotega people of  Zapatera Island 
between AD 800 - 1200 [Credit: TravelBlog.org]

The sculptures, discovered in 1849 by U.S. diplomat Ephraim George Squier on Zapatera Island, in the western part of Lake Nicaragua, date to between AD 800 and AD 1200.

The pieces are currently at the San Francisco Convent, in the colonial city of Granada, and consist of columns of black basalt 1.25 to 2.25 meters (4.1 to 7.4 feet) high by 60 centimeters (about 2 feet) wide, on average, with human and animal figures carved on them.

"Every one of us who was very involved with making the replicas could appreciate the beauty of the work as sculpture, the exact position of the nose, the corners of the mouth, because the norms that they used were the same ones we use today," Vargas, who was in charge of the project to reproduce the statues, told EFE.

To date, the pre-Colombian sculptures had only been studied by archaeologists, but over the past year they were examined for the first time by sculptors and architects to get an impression of how best to reproduce them.

"The delicacy of the work can be seen, the precision with which it was done. We're asking ourselves who taught (the sculptors), how - and where - they got that knowledge, ... because these were not works made by beginners' hands, they were made by experienced people," he said.

According to historians, the sculptures were created by the Chorotegas, who considered the island to be a sanctuary, and they had Mesoamerican and South American artistic influences.

The reproductions were made in concrete, with the original measurements and cracks caused by age, as part of the Colonial Route and Volcanoes tourist project, sponsored by the European Union in Nicaragua and the Luxembourg Agency for Development Cooperation.

The new concrete sculptures, which weigh between 182 and 364 kg (400 to 800 lb.), were taken to the island in small boats this past week for the inauguration of the Zapatera Archipelago National Park as a new tourist destination.

Once on the island, the reproductions had to be transported by large work teams up rough slopes with pulleys and tackle and other ancient methods to the site where the originals had been located.

The reproductions are now awaiting a treatment program that will give them the same appearance as the originals.

Source: EFE [November 30, 2015]