Opening 1826, the Museo Nacional Arqueología, Antropología e Historia Perú (MNAAH) offers a journey through Peruvian history. Its vast collection of ceramics, arrowheads, and jewelry date back thousands of years, and continues through special exhibits documenting the Spanish occupation that led to modern Peru. Within this all-encompassing museum are some of the world’s most important displays of traditional textile art and human skeletal remains—15,000, from 10,00 BC to AD 1500.
Travelers may explore the museum as part of an extended private tour of Lima’s top cultural spaces including the Larco Museum, which features the largest collection of pre-Columbian art in Peru. End this personalized and comprehensive journey through Peru’s entire history from antiquity to modern times, through art and artifacts with a Pisco sour.
The National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History is located in Plaza Bolivar in the Pueblo Libre district. Take a taxi or public transportation. From Miraflores take bus # 8306 to the Óvalo stop; expect about a 35-minute ride. From farther south, in the Barranco area, take either bus #7501 to the Canevaro stop or #3707 to the Avenida Canadá stop.
The museum is open year-round, Tuesday - Saturday, from 9am—4pm, and on Sundays and holidays from 9am—3:30pm. In general, the best time to visit Lima is wintertime (May–September), when there is the least amount of rain, especially important if planning a trip to Cusco or trek to Machu Picchu. The summer months (December–March) are warmer, but wetter, and in Lima especially, quite foggy.
In this 19th-century mansion, where independence heroes José San Martín and Simón Bolívar once lived, the history of the country is illustrated, by traveling Peruvian civilizations from prehistoric times to the colonial and republican periods; from the people of the Nazca, Paracas, Moche, and Chimú cultures to the Spanish conquest. One of the highlights is a replica of the Tello Obelisk, a prismatic granite monolith, one of the most intricate made, during the Early Horizon (900 BC to 200 BC) before metal tools.
