BOLIVIA: GENERAL INFORMATION INTEREST LINKS

Located in the city of Potosí, this building is considered the Escorial of America. It is made of stone, tile and cedar wood, and comprises an area of 7,570 m2. The access to this museum is through a beautiful Mannerist portal.

The visitor’s attention is first drawn to the “Mascarón”, of 1865, work of the French Eugenio Martín Moulon, according to a version existing on its origin. Nowadays, the Mascarón identifies both the Mint and the city of Potosí itself.

The external part of the building looks like a fortress, in the interior the patios have big wooden arcades and balconies with wide eaves. It is provided with all the facilities belonging to this kind of buildings: storage rooms, foundry and minting rooms etc.

The Mint shows material from three different ages of our past: pre-Colonial, Colonial and Republican.

It has more than 50 show rooms, and is divided into several sections: Colonial art gallery, retables, images and relief, antique furniture, history, arms, numismatics, Republican art gallery, archaeology, ethnography, anthropology and machinery.

Certainly, the most notable part is the laminating machinery room, with three sets of wooden gears brought from Spain, the huge cedar wood beams that support floors and ceilings, and the elliptical cupola where the main silver smelting furnace was installed.

The numismatics room gathers a collection of silver coins from Colonial and Republican times, and also keeps the iron seals or dies used to mint coins and medals.
 

The ethnography section shows the native garments of the inhabitants of the provinces of this Department. There is also a collection of retables of images made of wood, ivory, wax and alabaster.
 

Index
Bolivia-routes-sajama	Bolivia-routes-real-cordillera
Bolivia-routes-titikaka	Bolivia-routes-casa-moneda
Bolivia-routes-uyuni	Bolivia-routes-diablada
Bolivia-routes-potosi	Bolivia-routes-oruro
Bolivia-routes-mission	Bolivia-routes-tiahuanaco