Photo Essay - The National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

I went museuming in downtown Mexico City again yesterday, but this time straight to the pinnacle: I spent the day at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico’s largest museum, which takes up a significant block of real estate in Chapultepec Park.  This is an absolutely world-class museum, an overspilling cornucopia of the spoils of pre-Hispanic cultures running the gamut from North to South and prehistory to doomsday (pre-Hispanic Mexico had one); simply organized, brilliantly presented, attractive, quiet and educational, it takes a full day to see it and you wouldn’t want to miss a stone.

I always feel a little weird going to Anthropology museums, first because I feel I should be with an anthropologist (as I often was), but second because there’s a hidden danger for me in seeing the art, especially of the human figure, collected from such a great depth of time and assembled in one place. The cultural differences seem to fall away and, to my eye at least, reveal something like the endless anguish of human expression, a groping of distorted heads and hands into the infinite for a meaning or justification that never comes.  I don’t know; this thing, representation, is something that neither animals nor gods do, and we do it and we have always done it and when amassed to be contemplated as a whole it seems to emit a cry of the loneliness and pain of our middle state. 

At any rate I’ve had that experience at Anthropology museums.  At this one, however, I somehow avoided it.

The museum’s ground floor comprises a three-sided square around an immense courtyard, with rooms arranged counter-clockwise in order, each presenting a specific culture as a single topic.  The courtyard is dominated by a tremendous carved stone fountain.

And with that there’s nothing left but to start the journey, which being a journey of images is best done in photographs—having, of course, struggled with the proper white balance for museum lighting and then spent three hours this morning downloading, cropping, adjusting and selecting them. 

Room 1: Introduction to Anthropology

Heavy on skulls, spear points and wall text — a good introduction to anthropology and human prehistory.

A replica of "Lucy" (the original is in Ethiopia)

The museum was big on dioramas  -- all skillfully done

Room 2: The Peopling of America

The land bridge, megafauna, cave art—ah, the good old days.

Room 3: Preclassical Mesoamerica

The era from 2500 - 100 BC, preceding the rise of the pyramids and cities—what grace already in the sculptures!

Room 4: Teotihuacan

Why, I was just there!  In addition to scale models of the city (100-750 AD) and the huge dragon-head rainspouts I remember, they had a wealth of surprising smaller artifacts.

Go ahead; explain this one.

It looks happy--but what IS it?

Room 5: The Toltecs

Another familiar time stop (750-1200 AD) for me after my visit toTula -- but again with unexpected smaller pieces.

Well, hello again!

Room 6: The Mexica (Aztecs)

This room, occupying the far leg of the courtyard, was by far the biggest and apparently the most popular—and in the huge bounty of amazing pieces I felt closer to the Aztecs than at the Templo Mayor... 

...though my opinion of the Aztecs hasn't changed.

Apparently hair-pulling was OK in Aztec warfare)

Rooms 7: Gulf Coast (Olmecs)

Giant Olmec heads!  Tick those off the bucket list.  

Despite the stentorian heads, I found Gulf Coast art (1200-600 BC) to be the lightest and cheeriest of the cultures.

Room 8: Oaxaca

Zapotecs and Mixtecs, 1000 BC - Conquest

He looks a little too happy with his birthday present there.

Room 9: The Maya

All these cultures were separated in time and space, of course, each with their own different “feel”—but the “feel” of the Maya through their art was by far the most complex, weird and powerful.  I couldn’t put my finger on why.  Looking forward to visiting their sites further South!

Mayan burial urn

Mayan ornamented teeth 

Outdoors in back the museum had several full temples,

including this Mayan one

A charming temple detail

Room 10: The West

A grab-bag of multisyllabic cultures from across time—united in especially weird and beautiful art.

Room 11: The North (the Anasazi)

Funny at the remotest fringe of ancient Mexico to come across familiar scenes; I know the Anasazi's habitations and art well from my years in Tucson.

That completed the loop, after which one finds oneself at the gates of the onsite restaurant: a little overpriced (as to be expected) but with a delicious shrimp taco plate.

After lunch it was time to go back for—the second floor!  Don’t worry, I think my blog post is about at its photo-essay limit, and the anyway second floor was less spectacular: a look at the current lifestyles and crafts of Mexico’s indigenous tribes.  It was heavy on dioramas, recorded music and masks.