Currently the museum is closed for renovations, with work expected to be done sometime in 2021. There is a small temporary exhibit on the same square (directions are posted on the door).

On the east side of Plaza Bolívar, located inside a gorgeous colonial mansion, the Gold Museum presents an exquisite collection of ceramic, metalwork, and pre-Columbian gold jewelry created by the indigenous Zenú people; inhabitants of the region from 200 B.C. to about 1600 A.D. The Zenú were master artisans and, for their people, gold was imbued with immense spiritual value. The Zenú’s ritual of burying their dead along with their gold possessions beneath trees strewn with a kind of pre-Columbian wind chime made life easy on the Spanish. The brutal, and more economically minded, conquistadors simply followed the sound of the bells and proceeded to plunder Zenú’s ancestral tombs. Within a series of artfully conceived, illuminated cases, an astounding delicacy of form, sublime craftsmanship, and mystical themes marry to provide compelling viewing. There are whimsical animals, funerary urns, dazzling gold pendants, men metamorphosing into mythic creatures, and ornate filigree brooches.