Surprisingly I have never been to the famous gold museums in either Lima or Bogota, but whilst in Cartagena I found time for a brief visit to their small Museo de Oro, the Gold Museum. The museum might have been small, but the exhibits were very well displayed with informative text, which is not the case in many Latin American museums.
Pre-colombian gol
d jewellery and ornaments from the Zenu culture, as well as the Taironas and Muiscas have been found in Colombia dating back over 2000 years. Walking through a heavy bank vault style security door, I first came to a display of Sinú gold, including a delightful gold jaguar, together with anklets, bracelets and coverings for more intimate parts of the body. Other body adornments on display were ceramic rollers which would have been painted with natural pigments and rolled onto the skin to create body art.
The gold from the Zenú culture focussed on fish and marine birds and animals as the culture was based around a series of canals which they built around 500BC which supported the civilisation with fish and fertile sediment for agriculture. Amongst my favourite exhibits on display was the collection of gold fishing hooks and the line of spoonbills.
