The Australian Museum’s Machu Picchu exhibition brings ancient Andean societies to life – and features an extravagant collection of gold

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The Australian Museum’s record-breaking blockbuster Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs was always going to be a hard act to follow.

The great Inca citadel, instantly recognisable as Peru’s world heritage-listed Machu Picchu, is the drawing card for the museum’s major summer exhibition. And while Incan civilisations may not hold the same universal fascination as Egyptology, visitors may be surprised about how little they had known about the complex societies that disappeared with the Spanish invasion, before experiencing Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru.