National Museum of Anthropology

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The National Museum of Anthropology (Spanish: Museo Nacional de Antropología) is located within Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, Mexico. It contains significant anthropological finds from the nation of Mexico such as the Stone of the Sun (commonly known as the Aztec Calendar) and the 16th-century Aztec statue of Xochipilli.

Architecture

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 hectareas) or 857,890 square feet (almost 20 acres).

Exhibits

Opened in 1964 by President Adolfo López Mateos, the museum has a number of significant exhibits, such as the Stone of the Sun (depicted on the right), giant stone heads of the Olmec civilization that were found in the jungles of Tabasco and Veracruz, treasures recovered from the Maya civilization, the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itza, a replica of the sarcophagal lid from Pacal's tomb at Palenque and ethnological displays 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 Persia, Greece, China, Egypt & Spain.

Name

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).

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