Tunja
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Tunja is a municipality and city on the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes, in the region known as the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, 130 km northeast of Bogotá. In 2018 the municipality had a population of 172,548. It is the capital of Boyacá department and the Central Boyacá Province. Tunja is an important educational centre of well-known universities. In the time before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca, there was an indigenous settlement, called Hunza, seat of the hoa Eucaneme, conquered by the Spanish conquistadors on August 20, 1537. The Spanish city was founded by captain Gonzalo Suárez Rendón on August 6, 1539, exactly one year after the capital Santafé de Bogotá. The city hosts the most remaining Muisca architecture: Hunzahúa Well, Goranchacha Temple and Cojines del Zaque.
Image: Catedral Tunja 1
Image: Juande Castellanos 1
Image: Simonboltunja
Image: Puente de Boyaca 1
Muisca architecture
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This article describes the architecture of the Muisca. The Muisca, inhabiting the central highlands of the Colombian Andes, were one of the four great civilizations of the Americas. Unlike the three civilizations in present-day Mexico and Peru, they did not construct grand architecture of solid materials. While specialising in agriculture and gold-working, cloths and ceramics, their architecture was rather modest and made of non-permanent materials as wood and clay.
During the earliest stages of inhabitation, the people lived in caves and rock shelters, for example the Piedras del Tunjo in Facatativá
Replica of Muisca bohíos
As in North America, here Timucua, the villages of the Muisca were surrounded by wooden poles; enclosures
Bohíos were built slightly elevated from the surrounding area, like in Tayrona National Park