Door Knockers of Cartagena

Elaborate colonial door knockers encoding the social status of each household

Cartagena's walled city has one of the finest collections of colonial door knockers in the Americas — ornate cast-iron or brass fixtures that were not merely decorative but carried specific social meaning in the colonial hierarchy. Fish, lizards, lions, hands, and other forms each indicated the status, profession, and religion of the household.

Spotting and photographing the knockers is one of the more rewarding ways to walk the streets of the old city — it gives you a reason to stop and look closely at doors you'd otherwise walk past. The neighbourhood of San Diego (the residential district within the walls) has the highest concentration of old colonial houses and therefore the most variety. Several guided walking tours of the city make the door knockers a central theme.

things to do sight
A story
In colonial Cartagena, a door knocker was a social credential. A house with a fish-shaped knocker signalled a family of Jewish heritage; a lizard meant they worked in commerce; a hand holding a ball was used by noblemen; and a lion's head indicated a family with military connections. The Catholic Church, which monitored all of these distinctions obsessively, could tell from the street what kind of household lived behind each door. Walking the streets of the walled city with this in mind turns a walk past closed doors into a reading of colonial social history.