The Larco Museum is a privately owned museum of pre-Columbian art, located in the Pueblo Libre District of Lima, Peru. The museum is housed in an 18th-century vice-royal building built over a 7th-century pre-Columbian pyramid. It showcases chronological galleries that provide a thorough overview of 4,000 years of Peruvian pre-Columbian history. It is well known for its gallery of pre-Columbian erotic pottery. In the interests of the more prudish of readers, I will not include many pictures from the latter gallery.
We aren’t taught much about pre-Columbian cultures in the U.S. I seem to recall the most attention being to the Inca culture. Guess how long the Incas ruled? 100 years!
That’s right, only 100 years before the Spanish came. Yet Peru was one of seven independent sites where civilization started in the world. 10,000 years ago.
The museum was a nice stop on our journey starting at Ingapirca in Ecuador. The penultimate will likely be Machu Picchu next week.
I was impressed by the craftsmanship, which was highly regarded in the early cultures. I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
Whoa!
Steve, that is fabulous craftsmanship, beautiful art! I never knew there was so much to learn and admire in
Ecuador and Peru….. My generation was so Euro-centric…..and there was a world to enter in the southern hemisphere. Thank you!