Mexico City's Anthropology Museum (Museo Nacional de Antropologia) is one of the largest, newest, and most fascinating museums in a city that's just chock full of great museums. It easily ranks among the great museums of the world's capital cities. Throughout the museum you'll find intriguing exhibits and displays featuring sculptures, tools, artworks, common household items, maps, and photos, all of which team up to provide fascinating glimpses into the Mexico's many civilizations that existed up until they were conquered by the Spanish in the 16th century. Glimpses that often help explain why pan-American events are the way they are, or that cast new insight into modern issues as recurrences of issues that have never quite been resolved, or that simply try to answer the question of where mankind comes from.

The museum is located in Chapultepec (the Central Park of Mexico City) on Paseo del Reforma. The easiest way to get there is via the Metro subway system. The closest station to the museum is Auditorio (line 7), about a block or so walk, or the Chapultepec station (line 1), a pleasant 1/2 mile walk (1 or 2 km) through the park.

The museum is organized as a series of galleries (called salas) -- sort of museums within a museum -- each focused on one particular aspect of Mexico's past. Many of the galleries focus on the individual civilizations that existed throughout Mexico, such as the Mayas, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs. Other galleries focus on regions, such as the gulf coast, or northern Mexico. There are also a couple of galleries that provide general overview exhibits, such as an introduction to archaelogy, the ethnology museum, or the fascinating Sala de Origen.

The Sala de Origen focuses on the migration pattern of humans through the American continents beginning some 20,000 years ago and spanning about 10,000 years before they would manage to cover these two huge continents. Some of the exhibits in the Sala de Origen that I found particularly fascinating were the ones on the cultivation of typical Mexican foods -- foods that would be particularly valued by the Spanish during the conquest period and ultimately spread through the world. Foods such as chocolate, chilis, corn, tomatos, avocados, vanilla, etc. These have since been adopted into the cuisines of so many countries that it's sometimes hard to imagine that prior to 1500, they were really eaten only in the Americas, and most predominantly, in Mexico.

Some of the most historically fascinating displays are those in the galleries for each civilization. Through these galleries, you can really start to understand just how sharply different the cultures of the Mayans was from the Toltecs, or the Mexicas (Aztecs). The Sala de Toltecs conveys a sense of a warrior culture centered at Tula, with the jaguar featuring as a prominent theme. The Sala de Mexicas shows the codices -- ancient documents describing the history of Aztec civilizations, the settlement along Lake Texcoco, and the founding of the Mexican capital in the year 1300. In the Sala de Maya, you'll find artworks from the many ancient cities of the Yucatan peninsula, such as Chichen Itza and exhibits showing how the Mayan calendar worked and how Mayan priests tracked and predicted astronomical events with such great precision.

Overall, the museum is an incredible place to visit. It's the kind of museum that you really should plan to devote at least a whole day to visiting since it really does contain so many fascinating exhibits that it's impossible to absorb it all in just one day. If you're in a hurry though, it's in an area that offers lots of other attractions nearby, such as the Chapultepec Castle, so you could work it in along with some other sites. Don't miss it though...the Museum of Anthropology is a wonderful place!




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