FAKE ARCHAEOLOGY, A GARDEN OF COPIES AT THE MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY, MEXICO

cast of a Mayan estela


replica of Maya temple at Hochob


copy of the temple of Ek Balam, the entrance to the temple simulating an open jaw


Temple of Bonampak, directly on the ground floor, instead of being above a pyramid!


replicas of the murals at Bonampak


cast of the mosaics from La Venta


and prehispanic figurines for sale outside the museum...

The gardens of the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City contains a series of dislocated replicas of different pre-hispanic monuments within a parcourse clearly inspired by Carlos Pellicer's 1957-58 open air museum/poem of La Venta in Villahermosa, Chiapas. The architect of the museum (built in 1964) Pedro Ramirez Vazquez (who was the official national architect of the regime from the 60s to the 80s) had been a student of his during the 1930s at the Secundaria No. 4 in Mexico City...

(post dedicated to Sandra Rozental, my expedition companion in this discovery)