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Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira
The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira is an underground church built in a tunnel of salt mines 200 mts inside a salt mountain near the town of Zipaquira, in Cundinamarca, Colombia.
Curving and twisting tunnels descend into the Roman Catholic temple, passing 14 small chapels representing the stations of the cross, which illustrate the events of Jesus' last journey. Each station has a cross and several kneeing platforms carved into the salt structure. The temple at the bottom has three sections, representing the birth, life, and death of Jesus.
Geological formation
Salt deposits in Zipaquira were formed 200 million years ago, and were raised above sea level during the late Tertiary period, when the Andes were formed.
The mines were exploited by the Muisca culture in the eras before the Spanish came to the Americas.
History of the Cathedral
Years before the Cathedral was built, miners had carved a sanctuary.
In 1950 the construction of a bigger project was begun: the Salt Cathedral which was inaugurated in 1954. However, as the cathedral was carved inside an active mine, structural problems and safety concerns led the authorities to shut down the sanctuary in 1990.
In 1991 the construction of a new Cathedral was undertaken, 200 feet under the older one. This new Cathedral was inaugurated in 1995. Its various corridors and sanctuaries were achieved by making small but significant additions to the caves left behind by previous mining operations.
The name "Salt Cathedral" is mostly to attract tourists - while a functioning church that receives as many as 3,000 visitors on Sundays, it has no bishop and therefore no official status as a cathedral in Catholicism.
See also
The Wielizka Salt Mine, near Krakow in Poland.
External links
Catedral de Sal de Zipaquira, Official site of the Salt Cathedral.
Photos from inside the cathedral
El Tiempo: Catedral de Sal de Zipaquira: el milagro de los mineros en las entranas de la tierra
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira
