The National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru is the oldest state museum in Peru. You will find perfectly preserved pre hispanic ceramics, textiles, metals, organic materials and lithic's related to invaluable human remains. Furthermore objects of historic-artistic value are displayed. The documentary, photographic and bibliographic collections tell their story of the Colonial and Republican Period of Peru. All of these make the museum an inviting meeting place with Peruvian history.

Its historical architecture is established in the ideal place where everyone, no matter their age or where they come from, can discover, relive and question the life experiences of our ancestors. We invite national tourists and foreigners, children and adults, researchers and academic, cultural and entrepreneurial institutions and the general public to enjoy and experiment with the different activities we develop and make use of the spaces the museum offers.

The MNAAHP Lithic's Department presently has 18,250 archeological pieces from different places in our country and belonging to every period of our cultural history. From the first instruments elaborated since approximately 12,000 B.C., which show evidence of hunting and gathering activities, to the sumptuary and religious objects corresponding to later times.

Among the collections we find instruments used for the development of subsistence labour: projectile points, knives, scrapers, axes, hoes, mortars, grinding stones, hammer stones, etc.; instruments utilized for the manufacture of ceramics and metal pieces: polishers, small anvils, hammers, repoussé hammers, etc.; art objects possibly used in rituals: sculptures of deities that ornamented temples, vessels finely worked with images of mythological beings, beads for necklaces, sculptures of animals and plants, among others.

The collections housed in the Department of Ceramics number approximately 65,000 pieces among which are materials from scientific expeditions, donations and legal seizures. The first collections date from around 1906 and come from the work carried out by Max Uhle. Later the Peruvian government acquires the collection of Víctor Larco Herrera in 1924. From 1925 Julio C. Tello carried out archaeological expeditions over a substantial part of the national territory, managing to obtain collections of a scientific character which are presently housed in our Museum. The most ancient ceramic is from the Formative Period, which comes from the site of Kotosh. There is also cultural material from Chavín, Paracas, Pukara, Nazca, Moche, Lima, Tiwanaku, Wari, Lambayeque, Chincha, Chimú, Chancay, up through Inca presence.

The Department of Metals houses a collection of approximately 11,000 pre hispanic metal pieces. These pieces represent the development of metallurgy of the central Andean region from the Formative Period to Inca domination. We have a great variety of objects of gold, silver, copper and their alloys elaborated with sophisticated manufacturing and decorative techniques. This collection is made up of unique specimens such as the Paracas gold ornaments, the golden Pashash tupus, part of the Vicus collection from the elite tombs and the portrait jars from San Lorenzo, among others.

The Historical Collection of the MNAAHP is composed of approximately 4,500 pieces including canvases, sculptures, decorative art and movable cultural heritage of life of the Republican Period. One is the collection Emilio Gutierrez de Quintanilla accumulated since 1905, in addition to the oldest collection of the Viceroys on large canvases.

The collection of human remains at the MNAAHP consists of approximately 15,500 items among funeral bundles, complete skeletons, skulls and parts of skeletons. The time range takes in from the Lithic Period, with the skeletons from Lauricocha (ca. 10,000 B.P.), to the Inca Period, represented by osseous remains from Machu Picchu.
Among the most important collections we house, can be mentioned the Paracas collection. In our collections there are still intact funeral bundles, which Tello's team did not manage to unwrap, and partially unwrapped bundles. We also house collections originating from archaeological work in important zones like Nazca and Ancon, and sites like Kuelap, Pachacamac, Cerro Trinidad, Lauri, Cerro del Oro, Pampa de las Animas, Armatambo, Cajamarquilla, Makat Tampu and others.

The collection of exhibits was initiated at the beginning of the 20th century as aproduct of the scientific expeditions of Julio C. Tello and through the years has received collections originating from other excavations and other museums. One of its major virtues is that it is almost entirely composed of material from scientific excavations, so it has high research potential. It should be pointed out, that in Peru are no protests from native communities that can limit the possibilities of research.

The Department of Human Remains is in charge of research, examining and cataloguing in a database each item identified up until now to facilitate easy access to the collections and control of the movement of these pieces inside and outside of the MNAAHP.

At the moment we are beginning to carry out research based on important finds made in the mid 1990s in a sector of the district of Chorrillos in Lima, where human remains of a Chilean soldier were recovered with all his garments and complementary documentation. Also studies are underway of the five earliest specimens contained in the collection, the individuals from the collection from Lauricocha in the south of Peru. Complementary to these studies, the bio anthropological registry of funerary bundles and crania from the museum collection is an activity we have been promoting with the purpose of better documenting the museum's collections

This department has a collection of more than 12,008 pieces, mostly of pre columbian origin. It contains objects such as wooden agricultural tools, rudders of pre columbian vessels, Inca and Inca-Colonial keros; musical instruments, such as flutes, quenas, drums, ocarinas, whistles; wooden idols up to 2.3 meters tall, including the scepters carried by the Lord of the Huaca de la Cruz, etc. All this turns it into one of the country's most important collections of organic materials. The common characteristic of the artifacts safe-guarded is their organic origin, therefore, the collection is very vulnerable to humidity and brusque changes in temperature.

The textile collection of the MNAAHP has more than 32,000 specimens, among complete pieces and fragments corresponding to every cultural period from the Pre ceramic with cotton from 2,500 years B.C., through the Inca Period. Due to this, it is considered the world's second most important textile collection. The most important textile collection that the museum safeguards is the one from Paracas, because of its artistic and technical quality, in addition to the wealth of iconographic information in the depictions on the diverse articles such as mantles, unkus (shirts), shoulder capes, breechclouts, slings, headdresses, wigs, etc. The mantles are the most spectacular objects, widely recognized at an international level.

This collection is one of the most important ones in the world and has been countless times the source for consultation and research by eminent scientists.