WOODCARVING & ACCESSORIES

Costa Rica Visitors Attraction: The Jade And Gold Museums Of San Jose

For visitors fascinated by culture, societies, art, and history, there are a number of Costa Rica museums in downtown San Jose that provide a glance into the lives of the people that came before us.

This article is about two of them, the Costa Rica Jade Museum and Costa Rica Gold Museum.

Both are only a short walking distance of Costa Rica's National Theatre, right in the heart of downtown San Jose and are very popular—-and recommended—-museums to vist on a Costa Rica vacation.

1. The Jade Museum

Housed in the Instituto Nacional de Seguras, the tallest building in San Jose, is the planet's largest collection of pre-Columbian jade, with carvings—-some quite intricate—- dating to 600 B.C.

While it's known that the earliest people in Costa Rica arrived about 12,000-14,000 years before Columbus, at a point in time when mega mammals like mammoths and mastodons, sabre toothed cats, and ground sloths as big as elephants roamed this tiny country, jade appears to have been little more than another pretty rock until intricate jade carvings seemingly exploded onto the scene in an epochal blink of an eye.

The intricacy suggests a high degree of skill and the suddenness with which they appeared may indicate interaction with other, more advanced societies which may have introduced different cultural and religious rituals.

One thing is clear, however. Its arrival brought with it a seminal, dramatic change in culture and belief systems concerning ideology, non secular rituals, and material culture. Perhaps significantly, the vast majority of the carvings show animals, not humans, suggesting perhaps a mythic and power bestowing symbolism.

2. The Gold Museum

The Costa Rica Gold Museum is located right next door to the National Theatre but you can walk round-and-round and never see it because it's underground! Seems that space is a bit limited in that part of downtown and, since a public plaza was already already next to the Theatre, the only place left was below it.

To get to it, simply go behind the National Theatre and Plaza del Cultura. It's literally below the plaza.

Just as the jade carvings' sudden arrival (over only a few centuries) dramatically transformed the culture and belief systems of the tribes of Costa Rica about 700-600 B.C., the coming of gold about 400-700 A.D., represented another dramatic change in material culture.

In a figurative historical "blink-of-an-eye" jade was replaced by gold as the preeminent valuable material. Carving (jade) was replaced by metallurgy (gold).

That value, though, wasn't regarded as commerical in nature (in contrast to way the Europeans --- then and now--- measured its value ).

Instead, the races of people of Costa Rica viewed gold as something that gave them insight into the world beyond, a look into the cosmos, and the figures they created upon mastering metallurgy were symbols of mystical deities.

To put this into perspective, while today a country worships gold for what it can bring in our lifetime, the natives of Costa Rica worshipped it for what it brought in a later life.

Naturally, jade wasn't the most important material one day and replaced by gold the next. The transition involved an overlap of time as gold was incorporated into a pre-existing, ages old world of culture and ritual until, ultimately, the old ways of thinking and belief (represented by jade) were replaced by newer thought and belief systems.

Of course, most tourists who visit either museum do so to enjoy the beauty and wonder of the art, not to wonder why these objects were created or how they not only reflected culture but influenced it.

But, at the end of the day, simply admiring beauty might be more than enough reason to visit these attractions while on vacation.

About the writer: Vic Krumm lives in sunny Costa Rica. Visit his acclaimed web site aboutCosta Rica Vacationsand, before you come, discover moreCosta Rica Tourism Attractionsyou'll enjoy.

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