Pre-Columbian Gold Museum
Underground museum beneath the Plaza de la Cultura holding Costa Rica's national pre-Columbian gold collection.
The Pre-Columbian Gold Museum is one of three museums run by the Central Bank of Costa Rica in a purpose-built complex excavated beneath the Plaza de la Cultura, in the heart of San José. The architects proposed digging out the centre of the capital so that the square above could remain open while the galleries sat below ground. The complex was completed in 1982, and the bank's gold collection moved into it in 1985.
The collection numbers several thousand gold objects made between roughly AD 500 and 1500, together with ceramics, stone metates and jade. Pieces include pendants shaped as eagles, frogs, crocodiles and shamans, many cast by the lost-wax method, and the displays set them alongside material on the societies of the Diquís and Greater Nicoya regions. The same building also holds the Numismatic Museum and temporary exhibitions of archaeology and Costa Rican visual art.
Highlights
- Several thousand pre-Columbian gold objects from about AD 500 to 1500
- Lost-wax cast pendants of eagles, frogs, crocodiles and shamans
- Three underground levels beneath the Plaza de la Cultura
- Shares the complex with the Numismatic Museum and temporary galleries
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