ABSTRACT
The most recent project dedicated to Amazonia at the British Museum was the major exhibition, Unknown Amazon: Culture in Nature in Ancient Brazil, curated by Colin McEwen in 2001, which centred on recent archaeological studies related to terra preta soils that establish the sustained intentional human activity that has shaped the societies and environments of the region. In 1905, the British Museum received around 100 items collected by the French explorer Eugene Robuchon from the Murui-Muina and Bora People in the then Peruvian, now Colombian, Amazonia. Seasonal dances that take place in and around malocas re-create the world of agricultural cycles and the relationship between events in the past, present and future just as baskets carry seeds for the future. There is the stone of power, the bracelet, the women’s belt, the white headband, the teeth necklace, the woman’s crown, the men’s bracelet, the men’s crown, everything is held there; the stone of beauty is there.
