Museo de Sitio Colón 10

In-situ Chinchorro burial under a glass floor in central Arica

A small specialist museum in central Arica preserves a Chinchorro cemetery exactly as the diggers found it — a glass floor laid over the dig allows you to walk above bundled figures, infant burials and grave goods just as they have been for thousands of years. It is one of the more unusual museums on the continent.

The discoveries here, combined with the larger collection in Azapa, were central to UNESCO's 2021 listing of the Chinchorro burial sites as World Heritage. The display is small (you can walk it in fifteen minutes) but the experience is unforgettable. On Calle Colón just below the Morro.

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A story
When workers began excavating to build a hotel at Colón 10 in 2004, they uncovered 48 Chinchorro burials. Construction was stopped, the site preserved in place, and the floor above turned into glass — you walk over the mummies as they were buried, 7,000 years ago, untouched.

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