What survives of the civilizations that thrived in the lands that are now Latin America before the arrival of Europeans? How do we come to know the Incas, the Aztecs, and the many other cultures that flourished in these lands, many of which lasted centuries longer than has the United States?

This talk provides a behind-the-scenes view of the creation and reception of the exhibition “Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas”, a major international exhibition shown at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017-2018. This exhibition provides a rich opportunity to consider how the histories of these cultures have been generated and molded, and how they continue to evolve.