The Museo Regional Arqueológico Enrique Brüning is the older of Lambayeque's two major museums and worth visiting alongside the Royal Tombs. Founded by German merchant and amateur archaeologist Heinrich Brüning, who spent decades documenting the Mochica language and customs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it opened in 1966 and covers the full span of pre-Columbian cultures of the region.
Exhibits range from Chavín-period ceramics through Moche, Sicán (Lambayeque), and Chimú artefacts to Inca-era pieces. It gives valuable context to the region's complex sequence of civilisations that the Royal Tombs Museum, focused on a single burial, cannot. Look for the remarkable gold pieces from the Sicán culture, whose pyramid-dotted ceremonial centre Batán Grande lies an hour's drive inland.