Museo Arqueológico de Áncash
On the Plaza de Armas
If you don’t have a day for Chavín, at least take an hour for this museum. It has several great exhibits.
The first floor has temporary exhibits and an exhibit about the pre-Hispanic cultures of the region. This includes the Guitarrero Cave, where archeologists have found evidence that people there cultivated beans and chili peppers as far back as 9,700 BCE. There are also exhibits about the costal cultures Moxeque, Las Aldas and Sechín. The most popular exhibit is about Chavín. Below is a “cabeza clavo” which were stone carvings used as nails in the walls at Chavín.
Upstairs are collections of art from the Moche-Recuay, Huari, Lambayeque and Inca cultures. No museum in Peru is complete without mummies, so there is of course a mummy and examples of trepanated and “modified skulls.” The exhibit explains how people modified skulls to be “anular, tabular & bilobular.”
Do not miss the gardens in the back! You have to go through the downstairs, but the gardens include over a hundred stone monoliths.
Open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 9am-5pm
Adults s/7; Students, teachers and retired s/5; children s/2
museos.cultura.pe