Museo Nacional de Antropogolia

Mexico City, at least the areas we’ve explored so far, is surprisingly clean. There are many garbage and recycling depositories along the streets. There are also a huge number of police officers everywhere we’ve been. In fact, I wonder how seriously the locals take them. Today, as we were leaving our condo, I saw a police car stopped in the street and the driver was talking to a second officer who was standing on the curb. When the light changed color, the cars behind the police car started honking their horns so he would move. Not something I’ve ever seen in the States. Also, many of the police officers are women. In any event, all my impressions of the D.F. (Distrito Federal, or federal district, similar to Washington D.C.) so far have been positive.

We spent most of the day exploring the Museo Nacional de Antropogolia (National Museum of Anthropology). I will try to summarize what we saw and limit the pictures, but this is one of the best museums of it’s kind in the world so it will be a challenge. Feel free to skim this blog – I’ll never know!

The Museum, which is wonderfully organized, houses about 13 galleries of artifacts from Mexico’s indigenous peoples. The amount and quality of the pieces is astonishing. I was amazed at how many complete pieces there were – unlike many Greek and Roman sculptures I’ve seen, most of these sculptures still have their noses. It is also wonderful to see so much of Mexico’s ancestry displayed here in Mexico, where it can be seen by Mexicans. In fact we saw a number of school groups touring the galleries.

These are the Olmec heads from the Gulf Coast area. Amazing!

The Mexica (Aztec) Hall is the largest in the Museum and houses all kinds of phenomenal artifacts, including the Sun Stone (top, middle) which is sometimes called the Aztec Calendar. The Aztecs were based in what is now Mexico City, and in a few days we'll be seeing the ruins of their religious center, Templo Mayor. Stay tuned for that!

The indigenous people of Oaxaca are the Zapotec, and these are their artifacts. Look at the noses! Perfectly intact! We'll be in Oaxaca in a few weeks and were very interested in this section.

You can't see the detail on the jade mask, but trust me, it's phenomenal! These are from the Maya, who were in more southern Mexico (the Yucatan Peninsula) and into south America.

These are from the people of Teotihuacan, who pre-date the Aztecs. Look at that obsidian fish -- made from one piece! We will be visiting the ruins of Teotihuacan later in the trip.

You may be relieved to hear we didn't make it to any other galleries. The kids were so done by this time and kept hearing the condo swimming pool calling their names!