Doors of Cartagena

"Wow!" said Tali. "Look at the octopus on that door!" And she wasn't joking. Just to clarify, it wasn't a live octopus, but a rather fabulous door knocker.

As we continued walking through the streets of Cartagena over the next week we noticed more and more elaborate knockers and doors. And, since I love creativity in practical things, not to mention I love doors, I started taking photos of them. Lots.

Fast forward a few days and Tali and I are on a street art tour during which some things about the fancy looking doors were explained to us.

Firstly the doors themselves. Many are large with a smaller door within. The small door was used daily by servants, members of the house, some visitors. However, when an important visitor came, then the door would be opened to it's fullest to show respect for the esteemed guest. 

The other thing that was pointed out were the metal studs on the outside of the door. I had assumed there were merely decoration. Wrong. Horribly wrong... 

They were in fact a count of the number of slaves owned by the household. The more studs, the more slaves, the richer you were. 

Tali then proceeded to count the studs on each door we passed thereafter. It took us a while to walk around after that.

In addition, the knockers themselves were symbols of the families who lived behind that door.

For example, lions represented anyone connected to the military or similar protectors of the city.

                 

 

Anything to do with marine life or the sea represented members of the sea merchant community.

    

Lizard knockers represented members of the high society, especially those with royal connections.

   

The clergy's knockers are the shape of hands. However, apparently there are only three of these and we didn't manage to find any of them. 

We loved playing 'spot the knocker' once we knew all this culture attached to doors. It made walking the streets more like a treasure hunt!