Museo Nacional de Antropologia

Textured stone wall corner at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Stone wall and a bench in the museum at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Carved stone column statue at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Seated Aztec stone figure at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Jade funerary mask of Pakal at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Row of illuminated masks at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Painted clay Tree of Life at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Embroidered skirt before a mural at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Embroidered Tehuana dress at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Display of Mexican textiles at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Folk art and textiles in a pink room at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Embroidered indigenous costume on display at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Green stone Teotihuacan mask at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Carved Aztec stone relief at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

Aztec stone disk with a skull at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City

The Museo Nacional de Antropología (MNA, or National Museum of Anthropology) is a national museum of Mexico. It is the most visited museum in Mexico and around the world.

Located in the area between Paseo de la Reforma and Calle Mahatma Gandhi within Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, the museum contains significant archaeological and anthropological artifacts from the pre-Columbian heritage of Mexico, such as the Piedra del Sol (the "Stone of the Sun" or Aztec calendar stone) and the 16th-century Aztec statue of Xochipilli.Designed in 1963 by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Jorge Campuzano and Rafael Mijares, it has an impressive architecture with exhibition halls surrounding a patio with a huge pond and a vast square concrete umbrella supported by a single slender pillar (known as "el paraguas", Spanish for "the umbrella") around which splashes an artificial cascade. The halls are ringed by gardens, many of which contain outdoor exhibits. The museum has 23 rooms for exhibits and covers an area of 79,700 square meters (almost 8 hectares) or 857,890 square feet (almost 20 acres).

Opened in 1964 by President Adolfo López Mateos, the museum has a number of significant exhibits, such as the Stone of the Sun (depicted below), giant stone heads of the Olmec civilization that were found in the jungles of Tabasco and Veracruz, treasures recovered from the Maya civilization, at the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, a replica of the sarcophagal lid from Pacal's tomb at Palenque and ethnologicaldisplays of contemporary rural Mexican life. It also has a model of the location and layout of the former Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, the site of which is now occupied by the central area of modern-day Mexico City itself.

The museum also hosts visiting exhibits, generally focusing on other of the world's great cultures. Past exhibits have focused on ancient Iran, Greece, China, Egypt, Russia, and Spain.

It is a common misconception, even among Mexicans, that the museum's full name is the National Museum of Anthropology and History. Its official name is simply the National Museum of Anthropology. There is another corporation, the National Museum of History which is located in the nearby Chapultepec Castle, but it is a different museum altogether. The former focuses on pre-Columbian Mexico and modern day Mexican ethnography. The latter focuses on the Viceroyalty of New Spain and its progress towards modern Mexico, up to the 20th Century.

However, the official administrative body that manages both museums (and many other national and regional museums) is the National Institute of Anthropology and History (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia). Find below a few images form my last visit and enjoy!

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Joelle Maslaton Oster

Founder of Joelle Magazine and Studio Joelle, an interior design practice in New York. She writes on art, design and the places in between.

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