Author Description

This book is truly a discovery. In its pages are reproduced, for the first time and as a group, pieces of goldwork from important pre-Columbian cultures that are preserved today in the collections of various European museums. The learned text of German Arciniegas and the high quality photography of Juan Mayr offer us an opportunity to discover, in all its significance, an important part of our cultural heritage, one which until today was beyond the reach of the immense majority of Columbians. The exhaltation in this book of the cultural significance of this goldwork as an example of our Indian cultures' social vitality and the fact that today these pieces rest in foreign collections confirm he enormous contribution made by our America to the building of the modern world.