The Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art ( es, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino) is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily co ...

dedicated to the study and display of

pre-Columbian art Pre-Columbian art refers to the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European conquests starting in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era c ...

works and artifacts from

Central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

. The museum is located in the city centre of

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whos ...

, the capital of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. The museum was founded by the Chilean architect and antiquities collector Sergio Larraín García-Moreno, who had sought premises for the display and preservation of his private collection of pre-Columbian artefacts acquired over the course of nearly fifty years. With the support of Santiago's

municipal government A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...

at the time, García-Moreno secured the building and established the museum's

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

ial institution. The museum first opened in December 1981 and was closed from 2011 to 2013 for renovation.

Building

The museum is housed in the Palacio de la Real Aduana that was constructed between 1805 and 1807. It is located a block west of the Plaza de Armas and close to the

Palacio de los Tribunales de Justicia de Santiago The Palacio de los Tribunales de Justicia de Santiago (English: ''Courts of Justice Palace of Santiago'') is the building housing the Supreme Court of Chile, the Court of Appeals of Santiago, and the Court-martial Court of the Chilean Army, Chilean ...

and the

Former National Congress Building The Former National Congress Building (''ex Congreso Nacional'') is the former home of the Chilean Congress. Congress met in this building in central Santiago until Salvador Allende's socialist government was overthrown by Augusto Pinochet's milit ...

Collection

Items in the museum's collections are drawn from the major

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

culture areas of

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...

, Intermediate /

Isthmo-Colombian The Isthmo-Colombian Area is defined as a cultural area encompassing those territories occupied predominantly by speakers of the Chibchan languages at the time of European contact. It includes portions of the Central American isthmus like eastern E ...

Pan-Caribbean The concept of a "pan-Caribbean" culture area refers to recent proposals by an international group of archaeologists to the effect that contacts among Pre-Columbian peoples of the Yucatán Peninsula, the Antilles, Central America, and northern So ...

, Amazonia and the

Andean The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S l ...

. The museum has over 3,000 pieces representing almost 100 different groups of people. The collection ranges from about 10,000 years. The original collection was acquired based on the aesthetic quality of the objects, instead of their scientific or historical context. The collection is broken up into four areas: ;Area mesoamerica: Includes a statue of

Xipe Totec In Aztec mythology and religion, Xipe Totec (; nci-IPA, Xīpe Totēc, ˈʃiːpe ˈtoteːk(ʷ)) or Xipetotec ("Our Lord the Flayed One") was a life-death-rebirth deity, god of agriculture, vegetation, the east, spring, goldsmiths, silversmiths, ...

, an

incense burner A censer, incense burner, perfume burner or pastille burner is a vessel made for burning incense or perfume in some solid form. They vary greatly in size, form, and material of construction, and have been in use since ancient times throughout t ...

from the Teotihucan culture, and a

Mayan Mayan most commonly refers to: * Maya peoples, various indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Maya civilization, pre-Columbian culture of Mesoamerica and northern Central America * Mayan languages, language family spoken ...

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

. ;Area Intermedia: Showcase pieces include pottery from the Valdivia people, and Capuli figures chewing

coca leaf Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The plant is grown as a cash crop in the Argentine Northwest, Bolivia, Al ...

. Gold objects from the Veraguas and

Diquis The Diquis culture (sometimes spelled Diquís) was a pre-Columbian indigenous culture of Costa Rica that flourished from AD 700 to 1530. The word "diquís" means "great waters" or " great river" in the Boruca language. The Diquis formed part of ...

cultures are also represented. ;Area Andes Centrales: Features masks and copper figures, of which many were confiscated from graves. Examples include those from the Moche and textiles. The oldest textile in the museum is in this area, a painted cloth almost 3,000 years old from the Chavín culture. ;Area Andes del Sur: This collection features modern Chilean and Argentinian pieces. Ceramic urns from the Aguada culture, snuff trays from the San Pedro culture, and an

Incan The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

quipu ''Quipu'' (also spelled ''khipu'') are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America. A ''quipu'' usually consisted of cotton or camelid fiber strings. The Inca people ...

References

External links

Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino
official website {{Authority control Pre-Columbian art museums Art museums and galleries in Chile Museums in Santiago, Chile Art museums established in 1981 Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino Archaeological museums in Chile

Building

Collection

References

Further reading

External links