Museo archeológico" Antonini"

Centro italiano Studi e Ricerche Archeologiche Precolombiane

(CISRAP) - Filiale di Nasca - Perú.

Centro de Estudios Arqueológicos Precolombinos ( CEAP).

antonini archaeological museum

Museo arqueológico Antonini

English

The “Antonini Archaeological Museum” is administrated directly by the “ Centro Italiano Studi e Ricerche Precolombiane (CISRAP)”on the basis of an agreement with the Peruvian Government.

The Museum preserves and analyses the archaeological evidence resulting from the researching activity of the scholars of the “ Nasca Project ” in the ceremonial centre of Cahuachi and other main sites of the Rio Nasca Valley, since 1982. All the materials, therefore, belong within a certain context which is scientifically documented, and which provides each object proper cultural association.

http://www.geocities.com/proyectonasca/

The Museum complex extends over an internal surface of 750 square meters and also includes an open air archaeological park of 1.600 mq, in which it is possible to admire the "Bisambra Aqueduct”, a vestige of the talent of the ancient inhabitants in the hydraulic engineering field. The archaeological park shows some burial reconstructions of actual size, with imitations of the tombs and the relative funerary equipments. It also shows some reproductions of the rock micro paintings from Huayahua and a reliable small-scale model of the "Pampa of Nasca" geoglyphs.

The Museum is organized around the different factors which affected the development of the communities which settled down in the Nasca Valley and in the neighbouring territories. Among the most important factors were the natural resources, which the man of the Basin of the Rio Grande of Nasca learned to exploit. Another was the planning which informed the utilization and transformation of the physical space available, with economic, political and religious goals.

The first room of the Museum introduces the section dedicated to the environment, and describes the main archaeological sites in the area, Pueblo Viejo, Cahuachi, Estaqueria, Paredones, including the aquaducts, or filtering galleries. The displayed materials include samples of agricultural plants, discovered during the archaeological excavation, in addition to some examples of pottery jars, which belong to different periods - both chronological and cultural - of the sites which have been investigated.

From this point onward, the Museum examines all the aspects of the Nasca society. The collected materials allow to recreate, with a high level of approximation, several details of the everyday life, the economy and the polical and religious organization of the Nascas.

Pueblo Viejo, huge polychrome cup bowl depicting an ornitomorphic decoration of ‘vencejos’.

The panels that illustrate this section include chronological tables, maps, aerial photographs, and images of the main archaeological sites and an exhaustive description of the rock art present in the territory of Nasca and Palpa, with the reproduction of the most representative drawings. It will follow a section dedicated to the geoglyphs, with a rich variety of images and drawings provided by descriptive and explanatory texts.

Santa Clara polychrome antropomorphic head jar.

The three following large rooms are dedicated to the sites of San Jose’, Pueblo Viejo and Cahuachi, with a rich exhibit of pottery items, textiles, articrafts made out of bone, shell, wood, earthenware, examples of baskets, of engraved and pyrographed pumpkins, bone and vegetable remnants, each one proceeding from specific contexts, meticulously described and systematically studied.

In order to explain the building techniques implied in the architecture of the Nascas, the Museum uses some reconstructions of columns, typical stairs and wall elements, including the most simple examples of these, set on straw and clay. To fully understand the monumentality that characterized Cahuachi in its maximum splendour the Museum also contains, on a 1:1 scale, the reconstruction of one portion of the north façade of the "Templo of Escalonado", discovered in 1987. This is the unique example of wall decorated with a continuous frieze excavated in the Nasca Valley up to present.

Mummified body with evident cranial deformation

The ceremonies and the rituals associated with the burials or with the building of monuments are represented by an important collection of trophy-heads, and by offerings of various kinds. In addition, the Museum contains a reconstruction of a tomb with an authentic mummified individual with cranial deformation, discovered in one Usaka burial, during 1989 excavations

The textile art, from which the Nascas achieved great prestige, is represented by some examples which are unique, due to the iconographic elements that characterize them. The tools used to produce the textiles, are also displayed.

Cahuachi. Detail of a painted fabric fragment with allegorical meaning.

Music had also an important role; most of all if we consider it as a necessary element to the ritual celebration during the ceremonies officiated in Cahuachi, or during actions related to funeral rituals.

The Museum guards one of the most important collections of ceramic "antaras" (Pan’s flutes) in the whole world.

The last room includes materials referring to the middle and final periods of Nasca, discovered during the archaeological campains in Estaqueria and in the later sector of Pueblo Viejo. In addition, manufactured items recovered from sites located in other valleys, including Usaka, Santa Clara and Jumana, are displayed. Archaeological evidence of the "Periodo Intermedio Recente", precedent to the Incaic domination, proceeds mainly from the "Ciudad Perdida" of Huayuri, archaeologically explored in 1984 and 1985, besides the sector corresponding to the final occupation of Pueblo Viejo in the pre-Hispanic period.

PRECOLOMBIAN AQUEDUCT OF BISAMBRA

In the area included among the Rio Nasca and Rio Las Trancas, the ancient populations adopted an ingenious system of water provision, one of filtering galleries or puquios. In this way, they provided themselves with water which was conveyed to special tanks in the same area. This system allowed them to utilize reserves useful to irrigation all year long, without depending on the seasonal rains.

The aqueduct of Bisambra, restored from the City of Nasca in 1991, in cooperation with CISRAP, is one of the puquios with the greatest flow of the entire territory. Although most of its course had been destroyed by the uncontrolled urbanization of the 70’s, it still constitutes today a remarkable water supply source, necessary to the population's needs. A portion of the restored aqueduct can be admired in the archaeological park of the A.A.M.

How to get in contact with us:

Telephone 0051 - 56 - 523444

Fax 0051 - 56 - 523100

Address

Avenida de la Cultura, 600 (Bisambra) - Nasca - Perù

E. mail

General information: cahuachi@terra.com.pe CISRAP@numerica.it

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