The Gold Museum of Peru and Weapons of the World is an archaeological and military museum located in the district of Santiago de Surco, in Lima, created on 1960 from the private collection of Peruvian business man and diplomat Miguel Mujica Gallo. Works exhibited in the museum have been found mostly in the republican era and acquired by Miguel Mujica Gallo, who later donated them to the State. Most of the collection comes from indiscriminate huaqueo of the archaeological sites of the north coast of Peru, His motivation was inspired by admiration to the history of Peru that had this collector and with the purpose to maintain the goldsmith legacy of ancient times, as a tribute to the pre-Columbian Peruvian cultures in their various manifestations. The gold museum has pieces of gold, from earrings, masks, to ponchos embroidered with gold plates. There are also silver pieces and precious stones. Gold and silver had a complex magical religious symbolism in all Peruvian cultures. During pre-Incas these metals represented a constant duality sun-moon, day-night, feminine-masculine.The sun god or Inti represented sovereignty on the divine plane. The most important piece of gold is an Inti. These pieces give an idea, in general, of what the Spaniards found when they arrived in Peru, producing an encounter between two cultures, the one that gave the maximum value to precious metals and the local one that valued the time of work in making or make an object, despite having used precious metals for religious reasons, power status, as utensils or as part of their clothing or attire. Through them, it has been possible to know not only the advances of metallurgy, customs, beliefs and life that was carried in these cultures. The ancient Peruvians developed techniques not known to Europeans, such as giving color to metal surfaces by dying or plating them. All the pre-Inca cultures were goldsmiths of these metals, although only four of them stood out at the highest level. The Inca Empire is the richest in possession of metallic objects in gold and silver and in the quality and fineness of its finishes.
Victoria Mujica, referring to the historical documents found in the Archivo de Indias, cites one that says:
"In the lavish temple of Koricancha (Cusco) there was a solid gold disk the size of a wagon wheel representing the sun god, life-size golden idols with the human figure and also life-size gold and silver flames, and numerous plates of the same metal that covered the walls of the temple. "
Product of his countless trips abroad, Miguel Mujica Gallo was also collecting different weapons of the world, dating the oldest of the thirteenth century BC. C. He was a regular buyer in all important auctions where there were.
Twenty thousand weapons of all times and countries are exhibited in the museum, The quality, conservation and original owners of these pieces can be considered one of the most outstanding in the world in this specialty. In their environments, in addition to weapons, war uniforms, horse saddles, armor, spurs and other objects that marked time through time and characters of history for more than three thousand three hundred years.