Museo Oro del Perú y Armas del Mundo

This guide to the Museo Oro del Peru in Lima follows Miguel Mujica Gallo, a collector whose obsession with pre-Columbian gold began with a single ceremonial tumi and grew into the trove that fills this Monterrico building, which he handed over to the Peruvian state in 1993. It turns on the investigation that opened in 2001, when officials began testing the metal in these very cases as the collector's failing eyesight in his later years came under scrutiny. You'll hear about the foundation's archaeologists who spent years re-examining the vitrines afterward. Somewhere among today's pieces, one knife is said to remain from the very start of the story.