National Museum of Anthropology

The National Museum of Anthropology is the greatest museum of the ancient civilisations of the Americas and the most visited museum in Mexico. It holds the Sun Stone, the Coatlicue, the jade mask of the Maya king Pakal, Olmec colossal heads and tens of thousands of other objects from the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Zapotec, Maya, Mexica and Gulf Coast cultures, as well as ethnographic collections on the Indigenous peoples of Mexico today.

The building itself is a landmark. Designed by Pedro Ramirez Vazquez and opened in nineteen sixty four in Chapultepec Park, it wraps around a vast courtyard shaded by a single concrete canopy on one column, with water falling around it. The archaeological halls run in a horseshoe on the ground floor, in roughly chronological and regional order: the origins of humans in the Americas, the Preclassic villages, Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, the Mexica, Oaxaca, the Gulf Coast, the Maya, the north and the west. The upper floor is devoted to the living Indigenous cultures, with houses, costumes and crafts.

You cannot see everything in one visit. Most first time visitors head straight for the Mexica hall at the far end of the courtyard, then choose between the Maya hall with Pakal's tomb and the Gulf Coast hall with the Olmec heads. Each hall also opens onto a garden with reconstructed temples and stelae, so step outside when you need air.