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| The Stone of the Sun. The most important archaeological artifact from Aztec culture. Yes. |
There are two reasons why CDMX drifted to the top of my "must-see" list. Saturday I visit the pre-Aztec center of indigenous Mexican culture, Teotihuacan. Today, I visited El Museo Nacional de Antropología, the Anthropology Museum.
You know I love me some quirky off-beat, off-the-beaten-track museums. This wasn't one of them. This is one of the world's great museums. It is probably the preeminent archaeology / anthropology museum in all of the Americas. But, first, let's walk a little around the old barrio of Cuauhtemoc, my home for the next few days.
This is the Diana Fountain. It is called that because of the statue of the Roman goddess of the hunt, Diana, at the top of the waters. See the bow she is firing? You may know her better by her Greek name, Artemis.
Next: El Ángel de la Independencia.
Can you translate that from Spanish into English?
It is the Angel of Independence, one of the signature statues in all of CDMX. Built to commemorate Mexican independence. Angel of Victory on top.
That is a perfectly fine name for that piece of public art. Unlike this:
The Estela de Luz. The stele of light. Built in 2011 to commemorate the bicentennial of Mexican independence. It is all dark metal structure, meant to evoke the "stele" of various meso-American cultures -- "stele" being tall stone memorials -- we have "stele" today, which we typically limit to cemetery headstones -- but those are stele. But where's the "luz"? Where's the light? It's not lit up. I walked past tonight after dark. It's not lit up at night. There is no "luz" in the Estela de Luz. It's a rip-off.
But even the stinker of the Estela de Luz could not dampen my spirit. Only a few minutes of walking time and I arrived:
El Museo Nacional de Antropología.
As soon as you pay your money and enter the main section of the museum, you are greeted by this enormous fountain:
The first section is a general review of the descent of man, australopithecus, homo erectus, and all that. Then there was a section of man crossing the land bridge from Asia during the most recent ice age, a theory which may not quite be at the point of being debunked, but is teetering on the brink after the discovery of Meadowcroft Village in Western Pennsylvania (and another site in Chile) that appear to pre-date the opening of the land bridge. Then we got to the good stuff.
Yes, duck-shaped pottery constitutes the "good stuff." But it's only the appetizer course. As is the armadillo-shaped pot on the far left of this picture:
And of course there are tomb re-creations.
I believe this part is now the Teotihuacan part of the exhibit. From this point forward, through the rest of the first floor, it is pure, unadulterated, awesome:
I'm not going to comment when I cannot recall where a piece fits temporally and geographically. I'll just let you soak in the awesome:
I absolutely love this stuff. This, to me, rivals the works of the great masters.
And this one is a stele from Tikal:
There was not much from Tikal on display, probably because Tikal is in Guatemala and Guatemala is a sovereign country in its own right and Mexico's national museum is not going to be Tikal-centric. Despite the extreme awesomeness that is Tikal in Guatemala's Peten region.
This is from one of the Oaxaca cultures.
Monte Alban, perhaps? Mogote, maybe?
I'm guessing this is a jaguar. It looks almost Chinese, doesn't it?
In Mayan culture, maybe other meso-American cultures, thrones were flat stones that the ruler could sit upon and, well, rule.
This guy looks surprised about something:
Maybe he never expected to be stone sitting in Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology.
This one made me giggle to myself:
There is a little tiny head in the posterior area of the stone statue. A real "butt head," so to speak.
Yes, anthropology and ancient cultures can be fun.
That is a recreation of ancient ball court. The various meso-American cultures (Maya, in particular) loved their ball games, which were played with a hard rubber ball. The trick was to get the ball through the hole in what looks like a stone tire on the side. What did the winner win? The right to get sacrificed to the gods!
Talk about Pyrrhic victories.
These two looked, to me, at least, like "Humpty Dumpty Does Day of the Dead." YMMV.
And now we enter the heart and soul of the museum:
This is the section on "Mexica," or Aztec, culture, which arrived in the Valley of Mexico sometime after 1200.
This is a re-creation and map of the Aztec capital: Tenochtitlan.
Where is Tenochtitlan today? Can you visit it? Yes, sort of. The Spanish conquistadors buried Tenochtitlan underneath the modern "zocalo," or city center, of Mexico City.
That is why many of the artifacts in the "Mexica" section of the museum were discovered excavating the Mexico City subway. Tenochtitlan was literally buried underneath the modern city.
This is a coyote. A cute puppy-dog looking coyote.
This is that coyote, only with a coiled snake:
And here is the Stone of the Sun, the main photo-op spot in the museum.
And at this point we exit "Mexica" and continue on are journey.
These are the artifacts of Monte Alban:
Next stop: the Olmec.
The Olmec lived along the Gulf Coast (expensive real estate!) near modern day Veracruz. This is one of the most important surviving artifacts of Olmec culture, Cabeza Colosal. Colossal Head.
From another angle:
The Olmec were known for carving giant heads, a few of which have survived until today.
Here's a cutie:
This one is the water god.
Actually, I think he made a latte for me a couple of weeks ago.
And this is the rabbit god:
Yes. They had a rabbit god.
We are now in Maya territory:
This one is from Calakmul:
Evil Calakmul. Eeevil. With three e's. Why? They were the militaristic rival to Tikal in the latter centuries of the first millennia A.D. I'm on Team Tikal, so that makes Calakmul eeevil.
And now we move into Western Mexico indigenous cultures. We start with a sculpture (pottery) that looked, to me, at least (I was tired at this point), the Tin Man.
This looked like an inviting bench to sit on but, alas, it was part of the collection.
Let's end with that one. The second floor was an ethnographic museum, full of native costumes, decorations, and musical instruments. Not my thing. And, besides, I had been walking the museum for nearly three hours.
And that's a lot of museum-ing. Back to the hotel for a spa afternoon.
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