"M" for Mexico (part 5)

Mexico is also the Museums...

Mexico’s museums are amongst the most stunning in the world. It would be great if you speak a little bit of Spanish as not everything is translated in English. However, you will find your way around even without it - the artefacts are out of this world, and beauty has a language of its own which can be understood by anyone...

While some pieces of a specific ancient civilisation are displayed in a museum next to an archaeological site or in a state capital, such as the museums at Monte Albán in Oaxaca and the Fort of San Miguel in Campeche, there is a unique place where you will be able to see traces of all of Mexico’s major ancient civilisations.

Your only choice (and even an obligation) is to head to the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City!

There are so many things to see and so much knowledge to absorb there...

It might feel slightly overwhelming...

The National Museum of Anthropology is without exaggeration one of the best museums we have ever visited.

Since one probably needs days to properly see all eleven permanent exhibition archaeology halls, we tried to focus on five of them dedicated to Teotihuacán, the Toltecs, the Mexica, the Zapotecs and the Maya - unfortunately without success...

We could not stop ourselves from exploring, in a rush, more than what we had scheduled…

All the rooms were fascinating!

The visit might give you the motivation to study archaeology, become an archaeologist and pack your belongings for a forever excavation time in Mexico, or, depending on your age, make you regret you had not done all of that when you were a little bit younger!

Amongst the highlights of the museum are a colourful reproduction of Teotihuacán’s Temple of Quetzalcóatl (the original site has long lost its colours), some giant Olmec head statues, the jade mask of the Zapotec Bat God, the full-scale replica of the tomb of King Pakal discovered at Palenque and one of the four Atlantean warriors from Tula.

The star of all exhibitions is of course the 24-tonne Aztec Sun Stone, excavated from Templo Mayor. It is believed to be a large gladiatorial sacrificial altar, which must have been used to stage the fights between warriors. It is a representation of the Aztec concept of time, its cyclical nature, and the relationship between the gods and the humans. For the Mexica the solar year lasted 365 days and was divided into 18 months of 20 days, with 5 intercalary days. They also used a 13-month, 260-day ritual calendar - every 52 years, the ritual and solar calendars coincided. This system was similar to the Mayan calendar.

Carved in the enormous boulder is the face of a god emerging from the earth hole, holding a pair of human hearts and showing his tongue transformed in a sacrificial knife. There are different theories, one of which is that this is Xiuhtecuhtli - the god of fire and the creator of all life. He is surrounded by the four suns, or cycles of life and destruction, that preceded the current “fifth sun” cycle when the Aztecs lived. Around the god are 20 symbols, representing the days of the Aztec month, framed with the figure of the sun. The star is surrounded by two fire serpents, holding human heads in their open mouths. Despite centuries of research, some of the stone’s history and symbols are still a mystery and subject to various theories...

You will see replicas of the Aztec Sun Stone everywhere in Mexico!

From the moment you step into the beautiful entrance of the museum, each artefact on which you will lay your eyes will trigger a wow!

Musical instruments, some made from conches…

Ball game goals…

Zapotec human figures and art…

Mixtec codices…

Mayan stelae…

Mayan sculptures...

An Aztec drum…

A Toltec sun disk…

 A jade mask from Calakmul…

An Aztec sculptural monument associated with gladiator-like sacrifices…

A Zapotec tomb from Monte Albán…

An Aztec ceremonial recipient depicting the birth of Quetzalcóatl…

The world of the Aztec gods will not hold any more secrets after you have come across their statues in the Mexica exhibit hall...

You can spend days in the museum and not see it all, but the visit will be a real eye- and soul-opener…

In addition to ancient civilisations, Mexico’s museums are heaven for lovers of modern art, or any art for that matter.

You can admire Frida Kahlo’s "The Two Fridas" in the Museum of Modern Art, together with the masterpieces of many other less famous but brilliant Mexican painters.

If you want to learn more about Frida Kahlo’s life, the best way - other than watching the movie “Frida” with the astonishing performance of Salma Hayek - would be to visit La Casa Azul (or The Blue House) in the Coyoacán neighbourhood of Mexico City.

The house is in the image of her astonishing poetical universe - vivid colours and lots of art,from some of her paintings and the collection of more than 40 dolls that she designed to Diego Rivera's pre-Hispanic art...

She also died in the house - her ashes are in the pre-Hispanic urn in her room…

There are lots of colours from the vibrant blue of the courtyard to the warm yellow of the kitchen and the living room...

The house has been transformed into a museum, displaying paintings, photos, exotic dresses, eclectic jewellery and other objects from Frida Kahlo’s everyday life.

Some of the artist’s paintings are also there, including her last one - “Viva la Vida” (or "Long Live Life"), completed eight days before she died. Her final written diary entry from July 1954 read "I hope the exit is happy and I hope never to return."...

You will see a couple of her self-portraits, as well as some paintings and photos of her family.

Frida's father was German and her mother was a mestiza of Spanish and indigenous descent from Oaxaca.

When Frida was six years old, she contracted polio, which made her right leg grow shorter and thinner than the left. When she was a student at a medical school, she was the victim of a bus accident, and suffered many severe injuries.

"To wait with hidden anguish, my spine broken and my gaze, broad. Unable to walk on the great pathway. Moving through life fenced in by steel.", she wrote...

After that, the artist had to go through multiple surgeries and wear corsets, which kept her fragile body upright for the rest of her life.

She also had to give up her dreams of becoming a physician and started painting.

Frida's bed has a mirror on the ceiling which helped her paint while she was recovering from illness and surgeries. She was also painting sitting in a wheelchair...

Shortly after her accident, Frida met and married Diego Rivera who was 21 years her senior. They lived together in La Casa Azul from 1929 until 1954.

In the beautiful yard with lush greenery there are extracts of the letters they wrote to each other, reflecting their thoughts and feelings. Some are not only poetic but incredibly romantic...

Frida and Diego divorced and remarried, both had lovers, he had an affair with Frida's sister, she had an affair with Leon Trotsky…

A tumultuous relationship full of extremes - love, passion, tenderness, admiration, hatred, pain, suffering, treason and death... She wrote "I suffered two great accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down... The other accident is Diego. Diego was the worst.", but also "Love me a little. I adore you." and "Diego was everything; my child, my lover, my universe."...

Frida was an incredibly strong and charming woman…

In 1934, her "annus horribilis", her toes were amputated, she lost her third baby and discovered her sister and Diego were having an affair... "At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.", she wrote.

In 1953 her right foot had to be amputated and she wrote the now famous phrase: "Who needs feet? I've got wings to fly."...

She attended her first ever solo exhibition in Mexico City in her bed that she ordered transported to the gallery ahead of time, and then travelled there by ambulance.

I think that her autoportraits do not reflect how petite, delicate and exquisite she was... Diego on the other hand was towering and heavyset. Frida called him affectionately "toad face" and "panzón" (potbellied). Her mother referred to her daughter's marriage to Diego as "the wedding between an elephant and a dove"...

Frida's life was also her art, which is why her paintings are still so powerful, moving and inspiring… "I don't know if my paintings are surrealist or not, but what I am sure of is that they are the most honest expression of my being.", she wrote.

Mexico is not only ancient civilisations and museums, but an open-air gallery with lots of street art as well...

It is also home to some astonishing bright-coloured colonial cities full of magic, aka its Magical Towns...