Larco Museum, and more -- Lima, 4/13/18

This morning was really the first day of our Road Scholar program.  We met our leader, "Elias," and our fellow participants, (there are 16 of us) at the morning's orientation.  Not wasting any time, as soon as orientation was finished, the group was off to explore the Larco Museum, as well as other Lima sites.  Though it was gray outdoors when we started out, the day turned sunny and fine.

First:  the privately-funded Larco Museum holds one of the world's largest collections of Peruvian pre-Columbian artifacts and showcases lesser known Peruvian cultures such as the Moche, Chimú, and Nazca, plus, of course, the famous Inca.  Located in the Pueblo Libre District of Lima, it's housed in an 18th Century vice-royal mansion, and built over a 7th-Century pre-Columbian pyramid.  It's a vast repository of wonder, with six exhibit halls, 11 storage rooms, a vault for gold and silver exhibits, a gallery of erotic pottery and a truly gorgeous garden, reminding me of the colors and flowers we enjoyed in SoCal.  We had a most excellent guide, and could've spent considerable more time roaming through the halls.

Walls and walls filled with art.  This area was called "storage."  

I wondered about the "handles" on so much of the pottery.  Our guide called them "stirrups," and said they were used as ornamentation rather than function.  They'd be too fragile to pick up by the handle.

All gold.  Solid gold.

A rare Moche piece (1 AD - 800 AD), one of only two known to exist.

These next few photos are part of the erotica collection.  I purposefully left the pics small, lest they offend, but you can enlarge them if you choose.  Use your back arrow to return to this post.  Our guide talked freely about these pieces and what they depicted.

The museum's exhibits were some of the best we've ever seen,

and the garden outside was just as good, with walls of bright Bougainvillea.

and cactus of many kinds ....

I thought it would be difficult to follow this gorgeous museum, but lunch would involve a cooking class -- Peruvian style.  Yum!  I'll show you our afternoon in the next post.  But I had just enough time to squeeze this in.  Now, we're off again ....