Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art

This guide to the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art in Santiago centers on a single ruined statue: Xipe Totec, the flayed spring god of the old Gulf Coast cultures, shattered when the 1985 earthquake toppled it from its stand. You'll hear how restorer Luis Solar and two colleagues chose to rebuild the piece themselves rather than ship it abroad, testing shard against shard by hand for years. Along the way, listen for what an earlier restorer had quietly done to one of the figure's missing limbs.