MUSEO ETNOGRÁFICO JUAN B. AMBROSETTI

Just a stone's throw from the Plaza de Mayo, a visit to this museum will allow you to learn more about the archaeology of the country (especially Patagonia and Northwest Argentina). Pre-Columbian ceramics and textiles can also be admired. But the ethnographic collection is not limited to the gauchos' frontiers: the indigenous peoples of North America are also evoked in detail, as are certain aspects of African, oriental and oceanic civilizations. In fact, the museum is divided into three sections: biological anthropology, archaeology and ethnography. It contains bones (more than 10,000 pieces), textiles, sculptures, mummified bodies... In addition to the exhibition, lectures and guided tours are organized. Most of the objects originally came from the personal collection of the naturalist and explorer Francisco "Perito" Moreno, who founded the first ethnographic museum in Buenos Aires before transferring it to La Plata. The museum you are visiting today was created in 1904 by the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the University of Buenos Aires. Juan B. Ambrosetti, the first director of this second ethnographic museum, not only developed the ethnographic research but also the annual expeditions throughout Argentina in order to develop the knowledge of indigenous cultures. A very instructive and exciting visit that preserves to some extent the value and diversity of these peoples who have now disappeared.