Jacinto Jijon y Caamaño museum
The Ecuadorian ground guard archaeological treasures. You can Appreciate good part of them in your visit to the Jacinto Jijon y Caamaño museum, in the Catholic University. Collecting to the service of history. From beginnings of century, count Jacinto Jijon y Caamaño, heir of one of the richest families of Quito, dedicated themselves to rescue and to study the contained archaeological pieces in the Ecuadorian ground. Its reserve became an historical museum and worked in its house of the Circasiana. By their decision, in 1963 the pieces were donated to the Catholic University. At the moment they are exhibited in the second floor of the library of the institution. But its transfer to the University Cultural Center is had predicted.
In one of the corners of the Circasiana, located in present avenues Ten of August and Columbus, Jacinto Jijon y Caamaño reserved the archaeological pieces that were finding in a work to which it was dedicated from young person, and that left it single by its death, in 1950. This Quito aristocrat was born in 1890 and its inclination by archaeology begins in its first encounter with Gonzalez Suarez. It, like president of the National Academy of Historical Studies, went the one who motivated to the recovery and study of the ancestral cultures of the country.
Between 1909 and 1925, Jijon y Caamaño were dedicated to the ground prospection in the Ecuadorian provinces of Manabí, Carchi, Imbabura, Pichincha, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua and Chimborazo. It even made excavations in Maranga, in the North zone of Peru. This way, their efforts allowed him to establish, by stylistic analysis of the found pieces, the Protopanzaleo cultures, Panzaleo, Tuncahuán and Puruha. In addition its work helped to define the cultures imbabureñas, manteña and Inca in the country.
In agreement with the archaeologist Ernesto Salazar, the importance of the work of Jijon and Caamaño are in which ' it was managed to establish the first cultural sequence of pre-Columbian Ecuador. Its interpretation was essentially difusionista, conceiving the development of the local groups like result of swelling cultural of central Central America and the Andes.
In the testament of Jijon y Caamaño, declared Count of the Order of Malta, was left the this yearning of which its archaeological bottom happened to hands of some institution that conserved it and promoted.
For that reason, their wife and son donated in 1963 the pieces to the Catholic University of Quito. Then the Museum settled down Jacinth Jijon y Caamaño. And to the archaeological reserve good part of the individual of the archaeologist Max Uhle was added, who includes cultural material of Central America and Peru. Of more recent data the collections of art of Navarrese the Jijon families were incorporated and.
In first personal linen cloths, sculptures, furniture, effects and toys of centuries XVII in ahead meet. Here they excel the names of Miguel of Santiago, Bernardine Rodriguez, Manuel de Samaniego, Manuel Chili and Bernardo de Legarda. In second, however, one is exhibited nourished pinacoteca of national authors of the centuries XIX and XX, between which they honor Pinto Joaquin, Juan Manosalvas, Luis Chain, Antonio Rooms, Víctor Mideros, Juan Pablo Sanz, Juan Leon Mera Iturralde, Roura Oxandaberro and Oswaldo Guayasamín.
Address: Av. 12 de Octubre and Carrion Quito Pichincha Ecuador.
Open: Monday - Friday from 08:00 to 16:00.
Services: Tours.
