Cuenca's best museum, and free to enter, sits on the Tomebamba riverbank at the site of what was once a significant Inca administrative centre. The collection covers Ecuador's pre-Columbian cultures in depth — the Cañari people who preceded the Inca, the Inca occupation, and the diverse indigenous cultures of the Ecuadorian Amazon and highlands. Highlights include well-preserved ceramics, gold work, and a real mummy displayed with appropriate context. Behind the museum, terraced archaeological gardens lead down to the river, planted with native species and scattered with interpretive panels about the site's ancient history.