Museo Nacional De Antropología

Lonely Planet review

The National Museum of Anthropology, among the finest of its kind, stands in an extension of the Bosque de Chapultepec.

The vast museum offers more than most people can absorb in a single visit. Concentrate on the regions you plan to visit or have visited, with a quick look at some of the other eye-catching exhibits. Everything is superbly displayed, with much explanatory text translated into English. Audio-guide devices, in English, are available at the entrance (around $60 ).

The spacious complex, constructed in the 1960s, is the work of Mexican architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. Its long, rectangular courtyard is surrounded on three sides by two-storey display halls. An immense umbrella-like stone fountain rises up from the center of the courtyard.

The 12 ground-floor salas (halls) are dedicated to pre-Hispanic Mexico. The upper level shows how Mexico's indigenous descendants live today.

In a clearing about 100m in front of the museum's entrance, indigenous Totonac people perform their spectacular voladores rite - 'flying' from a 20m-high pole - several times a day.