Colombian art  Colombian art has 3500 years of history and covers a wide range of media and styles ranging from Spanish Baroque devotional painting to Quimbaya gold craftwork to the "lyrical americanism" of painter Alejandro Obregón (1920–1992). Perhaps the most internationally acclaimed Colombian artist is painter and sculptor Fernando Botero (1932). There is archaeological evidence that ceramics were produced on Colombia's Caribbean coast earlier than anywhere in the Americas outside of the lower Amazon Basin. Fiber-tempered ceramics associated with shell middens appeared at sites such as Puerto Hormiga, Monsú, Puerto Chacho, and San Jacinto by 3100 BC. Fiber-tempered ceramics at Monsú have been dated to 5940 radiocarbon years before present. The fiber-tempered pottery at Puerto Hormiga was "crude", formed from a single lump of clay. The fiber-tempered pottery at San Jacinto is described as "well-made". Sand-tempered coiled ceramics have also been found at Puerto Hormiga. The Piartal culture (750–1250 AD) in the mountainous region on the Colombia–Ecuador border produced unique methods of producing pottery as well as patterns inspired by animal or snake skin. Vessels were created for use in secondary burial, or the practice of allowing the flesh to decompose and then reburying the bones. These vessels were also used to hold relics and jewelry belonging to the deceased. The earliest examples of gold craftsmanship have been attributed to the Tumaco people of the Pacific coast and date to around 325 BCE. Gold would play a pivotal role in luring the Spanish to the area now called Colombia during the 16th century (See: El Dorado). One of the most valued artifacts of Pre-Columbian goldwork is the so-called "Poporo Quimbaya", a small (23.5 × 11.4 cm), hollow, devotional object (used to "mambeo" or coca leaf chewing ritual) made of gold whose aesthetic harmony, simple elegance, and mathematical symmetry are striking and almost modern. The Museo del Oro in Bogotá displays the most important collection of pre-Columbian gold handicraft in the Americas. Roughly between 200 BCE and 800 CE, the San Agustín culture, masters of stonecutting, entered its “classical period". They erected raised ceremonial centres, sarcophagi, and large stone monoliths depicting anthropomorphic and zoomorphhic forms out of stone.