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Gold Museum

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travelswithkids
travelswithkids
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See the Pre-Columbian Gold Artifacts of Costa Rica

See the Pre-Columbian Gold Artifacts of Costa Rica

The Gold Museum, in downtown San Jose, teaches you about the indigenous settlement and culture of Costa Rica. It describes some of the different tribes that used to live here and gives some description of their settlements. But as the name implies, the focus here is on gold artifacts from pre-Columbian times. They have a nice collection of ornaments of different shapes, including jaguar, butterly, bat, crocodile, and lobster shapes, among others.


The museum also traces the evolution and migration of the gold casting technology used here. According to the exhibits, the goldsmithing methods and influences moved into Costa Rica from Columbia, and the Mayan's to the north aren't really mentioned much at all, which we found surprising.

There are also some exhibits of somewhat whimsical pottery and ceremonial grinding tables from archaeological sites.

Housed in the same space (and included with the same admission fee) is the small Nuismatic Museum, tracing the evolution of money in Costa Rica, from cacao beans in colonial times to modern bills and coins. We walked through this relatively quickly, but it was a little interesting.

The National Theater is on the same plaza as the museums.

We hired a driver to take us there. I don't know if we'd have been able to find it on our own, and I wouldn't have known where to park a car anywhere nearby. It was also pouring down rain all afternoon, so being indoors in the museum was a good way to spend the afternoon.

From journal The Green and Gold of Costa Rica

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