Casa de la Moneda (Mint) - Potosi, Bolivia

Tiwy.com, Rem Sapozhnikov

February 2008

This Mint has become the second one in Potosi. It appeared almost 150 years after construction and active use of the first one. The second Mint was constructed from 1759 till 1773. It occupies the whole quarter and is situated in the center of the town next to the 10 November square.

Nowadays the Mint looks rather like a museum of history of Potosi. Here everything is exhibited: coins of all ages and machines that used to mint those coins, minerals, artwork, weapon, archaeological artifacts and even, for some reasons, they put several mummies behind the glass. As for me I don't understand what the mummy is doing in the Mint.

One of the main mysteries of that place is Mascaron that has become a symbol of the Mint and even of the complete Potosi. Mascaron appeared in the main yard in 1865. Nobody knows for sure who is depicted on it. There are various versions: gods of different people, famous colonizers and Indians of those times. But I think that it is a humanized face of the money proper.

Virgen del Cerro