Brüning Museum

Brüning Museum, archaeological museum in Lambayeque, Peru, displaying objects and artifacts of Peru’s ancient civilizations.

Upon opening in 1966, the Brüning Museum became northern Peru’s preeminent museum, specializing in Peru’s pre-Hispanic cultures. The museum was named for Hans Heinrich (Enrique) Brüning, a German engineer and amateur ethnographer who lived in and studied the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Brüning’s photography, drawings, and cultural findings galvanized anthropological and archaeological study in the region. The museum displays items from Brüning’s personal collection as well as later discoveries by professional archaeologists. The museum’s four floors of exhibits offer an array of finds, including mummies, ceramics, textiles, and artifacts that date back 5,000 years. The displays trace developments in technology and culture and largely focus on the region’s pre-Inca peoples, including the Chimú, Chavín, and Vicús. Many of the exhibits are given over to the Moche, who flourished in the area from the 1st to the 8th century ce. The collection’s centrepiece is the Sala de Oro (“Gold Room”).

In 2002 the Brüning Museum lost its status as northern Peru’s leading museum with the opening, a few blocks away, of the Museum of the Royal Tombs of Sipán. The new museum housed what had been the Brüning’s most popular exhibit, a vast collection of artifacts from a Moche tomb.