REVERSEACTION Trip to Colombia February 2026
Earlier this year REVERSEACTION’s Anne Kwaspen, Agnese Benzonelli, Marcos Martinon-Torres, and Nohora Bustamante returned to Colombia for another research trip, joining Adriana Escobar Torres and Lina María Campos-Quintero, Reverseactants based at the Museo del Oro.
They began their week away with a visit to the ongoing excavations at Nueva Esperanza, an 11-acre site with amazing archaeology in Soacha (you can read about it here). Anne says, “the part of the site that we visited contains pits where wooden house pillars had once stood”. It was inside these houses, where the deceased were usually buried, both in crouched and supine positions. “Many burial pits could be seen… some were short and oval-shaped, while others were rectangular”, she explains. In the afternoon, still at Nueva Esperanza, the team attended a lecture by archaeologist Francisco Romano. Thank you Joaquín Otero Santillán (INGETEC) and Sebastián Rivas Estrada (UNIMINUTO) for helping to make this visit happen.
Over the next few days Agnese and Nohora worked at the Museo de la Esmeralda and the Museo del Oro, Bogotá, analysing with pXRF and documenting with photography, 15 emeralds preserved as minerals attached to rock, and 67 individual emeralds, including from offerings recovered from Divino Niño archaeological site in nearby Sopó. Anne was also based at the Museo del Oro to study early-contact period mochilas with Adriana. Excitingly, a Muisca mochila currently on display in the museum, associated with a mummified individual, was removed from the showcase for this work. This beautiful mochila was made using three different weaving techniques. A second mochila studied on this trip was made using two different non-woven techniques: interlacing sprang (known in Colombia as Guane weaving) and nalbinding. Anne also studied a complex woven manta in complementary warp technique, and one large net for covering a deceased person for burial.
After a few days in Bogotá, the team flew to Bucaramanga and Marcos and Anne gave talks at the Primer Seminario de Textiles Arqueológicos de Santander, a day of presentations on local textiles held at Museo Casa de Bolivar. Marcos gave an overview of the REVERSEACTION project and Anne shared work on Guane mochilas and investigations into the quality and complexity of Guane and Muisca mantas. A recording of the day can be found on YouTube, including more talks by Consuelo Moreno, Marcela Peña-Barajas, and Laura Quintero Marín.
To finish off an amazing week — joined by Marcela Peña-Barajas and guide, Felipe Ramírez — the team took a mini-fieldtrip, hiking to see some original Guane rock paintings near to the Cueva de las Tejedores, and the Cañon del Chicamocha. On the final day, they visited textile artist Albeiro Camargo Camargo: Albeiro grows his own fique and cotton plants and demonstrated how to spin cotton with a drop spindle and a bone whorl, as well as how to prepare and splice the fique fibres. He also demonstrated how he uses the interlacing sprang technique to make mochilas.
All in all, a jam-packed and amazing trip to Colombia. Thank you as always to those who helped to make the trip, analyses and activities happen.