PUNO, PERU ””mdash; An ancient ceramic vessel, fully intact, sits within arm’s reach. Its glazed patterns are the few remnants of a largely undocumented culture. But the trained eye may experience insight beyond the aesthetic appeal.
The proximity between visitors and the priceless artifact is a quiet exhilaration in itself. The room does not have the sterile, polished quality seen in museums in Lima or the United States, and the only obstruction between visitors and artifacts is a good filing cabinet lock at most.
The museums in small municipalities throughout the highlands of Peru exhibit their collections between adobe walls, in natural light, on worn floors. This presentation lends an authentic aesthetic that any Western exhibition designer would strive to emulate.
The monoliths and vessels housed in rural museums were excavated just a potsherd’s throw away from where the museum now stands.
Maria Antonio came to the Museo de National and was led around the ground floor galleries by her daughter.
“I’ve seen this (pre-Columbian) art before but we came here because she likes it,” Antonio said in Spanish, gesturing to her daughter. “We feel like this is ours.”
Before Peru became its own nation, artifacts moved fluidly across borders and oceans en route to private collections or museums for study. When Peru gained its independence of Spain in 1929, Peruvians approved legislation to protect their cultural objects.
Initially, protecting cultural patrimony involved holding objects of cultural significance in the territory of Peru. With the illicit trade of historically significant items curtailed over the last few decades, thanks to international cooperation and changes in Peruvian law, the state of Peru now owns all cultural products excavated from its soil and strictly monitors the movement of these items within its borders.
The costly practice of maintaining vigilance and protection for the national collection strains the National Institute of Culture.
But artifacts excavated prior to 1929 are not governed by the same rules.
In exchange for allowing work on an excavation site and helping to provide labor, researchers from the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology agreed to assist in the construction and curation of a small museum in Taraco in 2004.
Though the researchers help to maintain the museum, it is now owned an managed by the municipality of Taraco, and any revenue generated from admissions goes back into the community, said Amiee Plourde, American codirector of a project in Tiquillaca and a former researcher at the Taraco site.
According to the ledgers of other publicly owned highland museums, the rural museums are frequented by the locals in what appears to be a clear success of cultural outreach and preservation for the National Institute of Culture.
But the Institute’s triumphs are parallel in Lima, where ancient Peruvian art reflects a nations past and the incorporation of contemporary Peruvian art history delivers the narrative of a civilization to the world. With the funds and skilled staff, Museo de Nacional in Lima showcases an organized traditional range of pre-Columbian ceramic vessels paired with text for a polyglot audience.
Museo de Nacional’s prowess in the Lima skyline is analogous to a cultural beacon in the international community.
Though goals of education are achieved through means other than the rural museums, the increase in institutions to house the cultural artifacts of Peru strengthens its cultural community.