Museo del Oro Precolombino

Museo del Oro Precolombino Review

The dazzling, modern Pre-Columbian Gold Museum, in a three-story underground structure beneath the Plaza de la Cultura, contains Central America's largest collection of pre-Columbian gold jewelry—20,000 troy ounces in more than 1,600 individual pieces—all owned by the Banco Central and displayed attractively in low-lighted, bilingual exhibits. Many pieces are in the form of frogs and eagles, two animals perceived by the region's early cultures to have great spiritual significance. A spiffy new illumination system was installed in 2011 making the pieces sparkle like never before. All that glitters here is not gold: most spectacular are the varied shaman figurines, which represent the human connection to animal deities. One of the halls houses the Museo Numismática (Coin Museum; admission included with Gold Museum), a repository of historic coins and bills and other objects used as legal tender throughout the country's history. Rotating art exhibitions happen on another level of the complex.