The research about the Gold Trail in Paraty, initiated by Marcos Caetano Ribas in 1998, has yelded many important projects, developed by the team of artists who run Teatro Espaço, in Paraty.

   These projects, that encompass the publication of two books, the recuperation of a section of the Gold trail, and the archeological prospect ion of the ruin of an old Toll House, have practically rediscovered the Gold Trail for Paraty. They have created a whole new area of historic and touristic information, and recuperated the memory of one of the main entrances to the interior of Brazil in the 18^th century.     

    During the past six years the work of Espaço Cultural Paraty / Teatro Espaço on the Gold Trail  has received the recognition of very important entities, such as the township of Paraty, the Army Historical Archives, the Ministry of Culture and, more recently, the Committee for Paraty as UNESCO’s World Heritage Site.

    The exhibit ‘The History of the Gold Trail in Paraty’ and the book by the same name, in its second edition, are highlights in this trajectory. It shows, in chronological order, the different cycles of the approximate 20 km of the trail that exists in the municipality of Paraty. From pre-Portuguese times, when it was just a narrow path opened by the Goianá Indians, through the gold cycle, when it was used to transport the metal from Minas to Rio de Janeiro, and reaching the present time.

    The exhibit is composed of maps from different times, large reproductions of the illustrations of Rugendas and Thomas Ender, static and articulated miniatures of the people who used the trail in different times, and many more carefully elaborated details, created by our team, to faithfully portray all the richness of information about this road, intimately connected to the history of Paraty and of colonial and imperial Brazil.

    It reconstructs the different cycles the country went through, emphasizing what happened in the region. It reveals how this Indian path became one of the most important post-discovery pathways, facilitating an interiorization that can be pointed as

one of the main factors for the sense of

nation that started to exist in the

18^th century.

       An exhibit about this portal of entry

into the country is of utmost importance,

as it increases the sense of citizenship

of the population of Paraty and Brazilians

in general, by telling our story and presenting

our identity.