Museo Larco

Museo Nacional de Arqueologia,
Antropologia e Historia del Peru

Museums

Peru has proved to be extremely interesting. I never would have imagined that I would have gone to so many places and done so many things and its only been 5 days! We even road a minibus which was pretty intimidating at first, but it turned out ok. It's just slightly difficult to figure out where to get off.

Today we went to el Museo Nacional de Arqueologia, Antropologia e Historia del Peru and el Museo Larco. I enjoyed both museums, but I personally liked the Archaeology and Anthropology museum. I especially liked it because it was the first museum that had things explained in english as well so we were able get a better understanding of the artifacts that were being displayed. The Archaeology and Anthropology Museum also had a lot of large 3-dimensional displays that I found extremely interesting.

Machu Picchu

El Gran Pajatén

Amazon Village

Ceremonial Center of Chavín de Huantar

I do enjoy learning all these things about the Peruvian culture and history, but every once and awhile its nice to be able to look at something other that ceramics and paintings. The models also make it easier to be able to visualize what it is the paragraphs on the walls were describing. I liked when Dr. Brown walked us through the possible reasons for the shapes of the buildings as well as why they may have placed them in certain spots. These were things that I never would have thought about before, but now I am more observant of the material we are viewing. 

I also really enjoyed getting to see some quipus close up. Since I started research on quipus in the spring for my History of Math class, I have already spent a great deal of time investigating these quipus so it is always exciting to finally get to see what it is you've spent so much time working on. 

Archaeology and Anthropology museum

Museo Larco

Museo Larco

I am still working to identify which of the quipus I have studied match up with the 3 we were able to see. Even so, it was still amazing to get to view these pieces and finally get to see what some of the descriptions have been talking about in how the quipus can be made from different colors and have all the different knots that tend to line up across to represent a certain digit place. 

 

Here are just a few close ups that demonstrate some of these color changes and knot groupings. I'm extremely excited to get to work more with these quipus and the Andean culture in general.