Archaeological Museum, La Serena

The Archaeological Museum of La Serena is a museum located in the center of the city of La Serena, capital of the Coquimbo Region. It was created on April 3, 1943. Five years later it was transferred to the Directorate of Libraries, Archives and Museums. The building that currently houses it was built during the Serena Plan.

At present, the Archeological Museum of La Serena has valuable archeological collections of the Atacama and Coquimbo cultures. It also houses a monumental moai from the Rapa Nui culture in a room dedicated to Easter Island, and there are testimonies of the cave paintings located in the area of Los Pelambres, in the interior of Salamanca, in the Choapa Valley.

Inside the Archaeological Museum there is also an anthropological and historical library, which preserves from old colonial manuscripts to newspapers from the early twentieth century published in the area.

Its stone portico at the entrance dates from 1820 and was part of an old colonial mansion belonging to the 5th Count of Villaseñor, José de Recabarren y Pardo de Figueroa, who was mayor of the city in 1791 among other positions.

Between 2010 and 2011 the museum was enlarged by the construction of a new annex building, which increased the exhibition area and was inaugurated on April 13, 2012, and in 2014 the reconstruction of the old part of the museum began.