Ritual object, funerary offering, work of art: The place of the Pre-Columbian past in the history of art in Peru

The debate on whether Pre-Columbian objects should be studied from the discipline of art history or from archaeology has been the subject of various research studies in recent decades. The present essay reflects on this debate in the context of museum curation in the Museo de Arte de Lima (Peru). It presents examples of recent temporary and permanent exhibition displays, focusing on the creation of new narratives and forms of sharing the past, derived from the study of the objects themselves while placing them in a wider context of updated archaeological research. The article concludes by proposing a new form of curation demonstrating that the coexistence of both disciplines is not only possible but necessary.