Day 41 - Sunday 30th October 2005

Sunday is musuem day. The supposed biggest and best museum in Mexico City is the musuem of anthropology, so thats where I went first! After catching the Metro over there I got off and walked through the Basque de Chapultepec, Mexico City’s largest park.

I had thought the museum would be free - it being Sunday and all - but apparently I was misinformed. As it only cost $38 pesos to enter, I didn’t complain too much. The musuem turned out to be well worth the money, with more exhibits than I could take in during a single visit. The main theme was the way in which the indigenous folk lived in pre-Hispanic times. It showed the way they lived, their houses, tools and what they worshipped. This was further broken down into different periods, from the preclassic period of 1500BC to showing how the descendents of these people live today.

The museum had a section on the city of Teotihuacan which I visited the previous day and so had a particular interest in. This gave me some more insight into the city and how its inhabitants lived, however the majority of the way of life of these people and who originally built the city remains a mystery both to me and the archaelogists who study the site and work on uncovering more mysteries of the city.

Similarly to the Crystal Maze TV show, one of the main rooms in the museum was devoted to the Aztecs. The Aztec Zone was a portrait of the ancient city of Tenochtitlan. This city lied where the zocalo in Mexico City now lies. The pyramids in the centre are the ruins that lie beside the cathedral. Note the water surrounding Tenochtitlan. That isn’t there anymore. now it is all built upon. Also in the Aztec Zone, is the sun stone, which bears the face of the Sun God Tonatuh in the centre. The rest of the stone represents the 5 worlds & the four points of the compass.

The musuem had also recreated a court for the game the pre-Hispanic people played, known simply as ‘The Ball Game’. The aim of the game was to keep a rubber ball off the ground by flicking it up with knees and hips. It is believed the game was used as part of religious ceremonies, and it was also a matter of life and death - literally. Players were sacrificed to the Gods after the game, however it is not clear whether the sacrifices were made from the winning team or the losing team.

After about three hours in the musuem my brain was about to explode with an overload of information so I went to the park, where there was a procession of folk dressed up in medieval outfits, guarded by the tourist police, who have a new uniform. They are all dressed in the classical Mexican get up. After I had my fill of the park I visited some art galleries to look at the pretty pictures. The palace of fine arts had the best viewing, as it had some more murals by Diego Rivera, including one named Man, Controller of the Universe. This was originally commissioned for the Rockerfeller Centre in NYC, but the Rockerfeller family didn’t go along with its anti-capitalist theme and had it destroyed. Rivera then reproduced it in this palace. In the mural Capitalism is shown on the left, together with hunger and war, with Socialism, health and peace on the right. Later I stumbled upon an exhibition of paintings by Juan O’Gorman. No pics were allowed, but google him, some of his paintings are quality.