Herrera Museum, also known as the Favio Rodrigues Rios Museum, is a simple museum located in the center of Chitré.
It Offers to the public a sample of pre-Hispanic times, religious art, customs and traditions.
How the ancient settlers lived and knew, in addition to political documents.
The neoclassic building of the museum has about 100 years, it was a house, after that, it was a Post Office and telegraph, and the end it become to be the building of the museum.
It has 7 rooms of exhibitions, they are in two tiers.
Ethnographic Room
It is a arte gallery, with picture that represent the herrera culture, they were made by local artist.
Archeology Room
It is a room dedicate to the pre-colombian objects, they were found in this place, like ceramics and bones.
The objects are placed in chronological order, so you can see the evolution through the years.
One of the amazing things is they used the bones to do stamps.
Also, you can see a kind of burial, which consist in place the bones in a vessel.
Ceramic: they began to decorate the ceramic with zest, stamps and others by 1,000 BC.
The oldest ceramic had been found in Sarigua, and we can find some samples at this museum.
There is a bone (tibia) of a giant sloth as well.
Mortuary Room
One of the interesting things is a replica of Parita Cacique burial. There are personal objects made with gold.
Chitré Room
Among the things that caught my attentions the most is the Herrera Province´s accession act to the Republic of Panama.
Some ancient weapons and the first flag made in Chitré.
There are other interesting things like an old breathalyzer, it is a French apparatus with which the degree of alcohol was measured.
It can see others things like
- Documents of November 10, 1821,
- information of the communication media of the time,
- transport,
- crafts,
- shields,
- religious arts,
- photographs of the time,
- and a bell of XVIII century.
Herrera Rom
In this room, we can find objects of the Herrera culture, that they still use, like the ocueño dress, the dirty devil, the mirror devil and musical instruments.
It is the dress that uses Miss Centenary in 1948.
Library
It has a small library, where you can find information of Herrera.
Hours
- Thursday to Saturday.
- 8:00 a.m. a 4:00 p.m.
Price
- Free.
Booking
The museum requires a booking for your visit, it is done from the Mi Cultura website, click here.
However, if it is close you can come by and ask if you can enter the museum, if there are no bookings they will probably let you pass.
Note: some of the museums of Panama are not so spectacular, some of they do not have the adequate conditions for the objects that they have, however, worth visiting because: they are really cheap and you learn about the place you are visiting.
How to get to Herrera Museum?
Take the Panamerican highway until Divisa, then take the street in the direction of Chitré, continue to the town of Chitré, on this street on the right-hand side you will see the museum.
The museum is diagonal to La Bandera Park. There are buses that go from the capital to Chitré.
Update: 2021.
Other places that you may like
- Sarigua National Park
- Belisario Porras Museum
- Iguana Island and its Spectacular White Sand
- Exciting Whale Watching Tour in Pedasí
