Beneath the Surface: Life, Death and Gold in Ancient Panama

Beneath the Surface: Life, Death, and Gold in Ancient Panama, at the Penn Museum until November 1, 2015, explores the history of, archaeological evidence about, and new research perspectives on the Coclé people who lived from about 700 to 900 CE. Video footage from the original Sitio Conte excavation and more than 200 objects from the famous excavation provide an immersive experience in this installation. One massive burial, dubbed “Burial 11” by the excavators, yielded the most extraordinary materials from the excavation. Believed to be that of a paramount chief, it contained twenty-three individuals in three distinct layers, accompanied by a vast array of grave objects. A to-scale installation of the burial serves as the exhibition’s centerpiece and features many artifacts displayed in the actual positions in which they were found, as well as digital interactive stations that allow for further exploration.

View the exhibition's official website.

Gold of the Ancient Americas

On view now at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore is Gold of the Ancient Americas, an exhibition showcasing more than 50 artifacts, including cast animal pendants, a hammered gold disc, beaded necklaces and nose ornaments made by the indigenous peoples of the ancient Americas from Peru to Panama. The exhibition explores the Walters’ collection of gold ornaments crafted in Central and South America between AD 500 and 1500, alongside gifts to the collection from several generous donors. A mix of art and science, the exhibition tells the story of ancient societies through their use of gold as a symbol of power, wealth, and privilege, and highlights the making of gold objects by ancient American goldsmiths before the Spanish conquest.

Visit the Walters Art Museum website.

Images courtesy of the Walters Art Museum

L'Inca et le Conquistador

L’Inca et le conquistador (The Inca and the Conquistador), a new exhibition at the Musée du Quai Branly, uses artistic creations by the Inca and by the Spanish to tell both sides of the story of the conquest of Peru and to illustrate the confrontations that resulted from contact between two radically different worlds. Conceived by curator Paz Núnez-Regueiro, the exhibition focuses on two protagonists, the Inca sovereign Atahualpa and the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, whose interactions provoked a profound political, economic, cultural, and religious revolution in both of their empires. The paintings, weapons, textiles, gold objects, ceramics, maps, and engravings, mostly from the museum’s own collection, together tell this epic story and shed light on this mutual encounter with the “other.”

View the exhibition's official website.

Gold figurine  -  Inca, Peru  -  15th–16th century 

Portrait of Huayna Capac, Inca XII

Portrait of Atahualpa, Inca XIV

Male figure  -  Inca, Peru  -  15th–16th century

Tribal Art Auction at Zemanek-Münster

Zemanek-Münster will present their 79th sale of fine tribal art and artifacts on March 21 in Würzburg. The wide array of traditional works to be put before the bidders represent cultures from Central and West Africa, New Guinea, Central and South America, and elsewhere.

View the online catalogue.

Mask  -  Bembe, D.R. Congo

Bird mask  -  Dan, Côte d'Ivoire

Bird pectoral  -  Tairona, Colombia

Images courtesy of Zemanek-Münster

Les rois mochica: Divinité et pouvoir dans le Pérou ancien

For its reopening, the Musée d’Ethnographie de Genève (MEG) is holding a world-premiere exhibition of the treasures from a royal Moche tomb that was excavated by Steve Bourget and his team in the summer of 2008. The hitherto unseen pieces from the Huaca El Pueblo archaeological site near the village of Ucupe on the north coast of Peru form the nucleus of this exhibition, which will be on view until May 3, 2015. It also features exceptional pieces from other royal tombs, including those of Sipán and Dos Cabezas. With more than 300 works, of which sixty are on loan from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and 180 from European museums including those of Berlin, Stuttgart, and Schaffhausen, Les rois mochica. Divinité et pouvoir dans le Pérou ancien (Moche Kings: Divinity and Power in Ancient Peru) is an homage to one of the most important of the Pre-Columbian Peruvian civilizations, which flourished between the first and eighth centuries. The show will be accompanied by an ambitious program of related activities.

  Visit the official MEG website.

Images and information courtesy of MEG

Peruvian Gold: Ancient Treasures Unearthed

In its final weeks at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC is Peruvian Gold: Ancient Treasures Unearthed, which showcases a stunning array of gold and silver artifacts from Peru's pre-Inca heritage, including ceremonial and funerary masks, textiles, ceremonial ornaments, ceramics, and jewelry. The centerpiece of the exhibition is "El Tocado," the largest and most ornate pre-Columbian headdress ever discovered. This extraordinary example of gold regalia dates from the Middle Sican period (AD 900–1100) and came to light again in 1991. The exhibition draws its material from three Peruvian institutions: the Sican National Museum, the Larco Museum, and the Museum of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Aztecs in Melbourne

Through August 10, visitors to the Melbourne Museum can discover the ingenious agricultural technology, bustling commercial empire and pantheon of deities of Mexico's ancient Aztec civilization. Aztecs explores accounts of war, the arrival of Spanish explorers in Aztec territory, the encounter between Cortés and Moctezuma, and both the truth and fiction of Aztec human sacrifice. The installation was developed by the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in partnership with the National Council for Culture and the Arts - National Institute of Anthropology and History - Mexico, the Australian Museum, and Museum Victoria.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Image courtesy of Museum Victoria

Gold and the Incas: Lost Worlds of Peru

The National Gallery of Australia is hosting a major international exhibition, Gold and the Incas: Lost Worlds of Peru, until April 21, 2014. This installation is the most important survey of Peruvian art ever staged in Australia and will showcase the splendor of the ancient pre-Hispanic cultures of Peru. Audiences will encounter the aesthetic depth, drama and beauty of the famous Incan empire and its predecessors. More than 200 objects, from scintillating gold pieces made to decorate the nobility in life or in death, intricate jewelery, elaborate embroidered and woven cloths to breathtakingly sophisticated ceramic sculptures will be on display.

Visit the exhibition's official website.

Images and information courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia

Beyond Eldorado: Power and Gold in Ancient Colombia

From the Spanish Conquistadors to DreamWorks Studio’s animated heroes Tulio and Miguel, and by way of Voltaire’s Candide, many have dreamed of El Dorado. Whether a utopia or a myth, the legend of this lost city of gold rests on a fascinating reality that the British Museum’s most recent exhibition explores. Beyond El Dorado: Power and Gold in Ancient Colombia, on view through March 23, 2014, begins with the ritual that is the origin of the notion of El Dorado, which means “the golden one.” In this ritual, which was celebrated at Lake Guatavita, not far from what is now Bogota in Colombia, an individual who was contending for power was covered with gold dust, dove into the lake, and emerged as a chief of the Muisca people.

For more information on this exhibition, visit the official website.

Images and information courtesy of The British Museum