GUARDIANS OF STONE

Ancient statues keep watch over hundreds of tombs in the mountains of Colombia.

SCOTT ELDER

A seven-foot-tall warrior glares across a grassy valley in the Andes Mountains of South America. He flashes fierce jaguar-like fangs and watches the scene with his stony stare. Makes sense: The figure is made of, well, stone. Some 600 of these statues have occupied the area near San Agustín, Colombia, for more than a thousand years. But nobody’s sure why they were built—or what the statues can tell us about who built them. Scientists are digging up clues to solve the mystery. STONES AND BONES When the Spanish colonized the region about 400 years ago, the long-abandoned statues were the only traces of the mysterious sculptors who made them. Some had a guess: that the creators must’ve had magical powers. How else to explain the sculptures when the metal tools…

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National Geographic Kids (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2025

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