Museum of Gold

The Museum of Gold (Museo del Oro) holds the largest collection of gold artifacts in the world, shown in exhibition rooms on its second and third floors. Its pre-Columbian pieces are made of gold and of other metal alloys such as tumbaga, a blend of gold and copper. They are displayed alongside pottery, stone, shell, wood and textile objects.

Together these objects testify to the life and thought of the societies that lived in present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Many indigenous groups regarded gold as a sacred metal charged with symbolic and religious value rather than as a source of wealth. Spanish accounts reported, for example, that the Inca called gold the sweat of the sun and silver the tears of the moon.

The archaeology museum receives around half a million visitors a year, making it one of Colombia's most visited tourist highlights. It suits anyone curious about the country's peoples before the conquest.