Travels in Mexico

... for the archaeologically inclined

Stone relief sculpture showing Mayan person with head gear and holding staff.

When planning a trip it can be smart to have a thematic focal point, a motif for your itinerary. If you're travelling in Mexico, looking for good archeological sites is a fantastic way to see the country. In Mexico archeological sites are considered points of national pride – and treated as such – so what you get if you visit them is usually quite spectacular!

Archaeological sites

Mexico has tens of thousands archaeological sites, well over 150 of which are open to the public, so you'd be hard pressed to visit them all. I'll show you a handful of them, ones that I have visited myself, located in the central and southern part of the country.

These are the places we'll take a closer look at:

  1. Templo Mayor (Tenochtitlan)
  2. Museo Nacional de Antropología
  3. Teotihuacan
  4. Tlachihualtepetl (Great Pyramid of Cholula)
  5. Museo de Antropología de Xalapa
  6. Parque-Museo La Venta
  7. Palenque
  8. Monte Albán

Templo Mayor

Tenochtitlan

Stone relief of Mexican goddess Tlaltechutli, displayed in Museo Templo Mayor.

In this stone relief, which is on display at Mexico City’s Museo Templo Mayor, the deity Tlaltecuhtli is standing with its back towards the viewer, squatting as if giving birth, and bending her heads backward so that she looks at you with her head upside down. Sticking out of her mouth is a sacrificial knife.

For anybody interested in the history of Mexico, Templo Mayor in Mexico City's Centro Histórico is a great place to start. Relatively easy to get to (relatively easy if you are already in Mexico City ... and I say relatively easy, because if you have to get there with car it might not feel easy at all, taking into consideration Mexico City's dreadful traffic chaos).

These ruins are the remains of the Aztec city of Technotitlan, which was captured by the Spaniards in 1521. Today there is an archeological pit that you can walk around, and a great museum attached to it which showcases some of the major finds from the archeological site.

Museo Nacional de Antropología

Opened in 1964, Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City is the mother of all museums in Mexico. A monument to national pride, its architecture is so impactful that I usually leave the building thinking to myself "hot damn I'm proud to be Mexican!" And I'm not Mexican, so that'll tell you something about how well the whole thing is put together.

The courtyard of Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

The courtyard of Museo Nacional de Antropología.

This must be by far the most beautiful museum built as a museum. Its substance is exquisite. (Rebecca West in Survivors in Mexico)

Ancient metropolis Teotihuacan

One of the most important archaeological sites in the world, Teotihuacan is located a short trip outside of Mexico City. If you only see one site in Mexico, it really should be this one. I usually take a public bus to get there, departing from (and returning to) Autobuses del Norte bus terminal.

According to one estimate Teotihuacan was once home to between 100,000 - 150,000 people, and one of the many things intriguing about this is that we don’t know exactly who these people were. But we know that they were not just one people, rather Teotihuacan was a metropolis where people from a diverse cultural background coexisted, and different ethnic communities, some of them originating from places far away, had their own residential barrios within the city.

Picture of pyramids taken from the Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan. Pyramid of the sun in the background, against a cloudy sky.

Standing on top of Pirámide de la Luna, looking down at Plaza de la Luna with the Pirámide del Sol in the background.

Tlachihualtepetl

Great pyramid of Cholula

A short journey from Mexico City is Puebla. (You can even take the bus directly from Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juárez – Mexico City International Airport – if that type of thing catches your fancy; it takes around three hours).

Cholula is just outside Puebla, and the pyramid here, Tlachihualtepetl, is by volume the largest pyramid known to exist. That being said, for the casual observer, it's a little hard to recognize it as a pyramid since it is still covered by grass, trees and soil. The Spaniards, thinking it was just a hill, built a church – Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remediosa – on top of it, and the cultural, political, and historical significance of that constellation is hard to miss. If you're clever you can compose a photography of the pyramid with the church on top of it and the smoking volcano Popocatépetl in the background. That's a shot full of content!

Image of Iglesia de Nuestra Señora in Puebla, on top of the what appears to be a grassy hill, but is the great pyramid. In the background there is steam from the volcano Popocatepetl.

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remediosa on top of the great pyramid of Puebla, Tlachihualtepetl. In the background rises the steam from the volcano Popocatépetl.

Museo de Antropología de Xalapa

One of my favorite museums in the world is the Antropology Museum of Xalapa in Veracruz. Not only because of its collections, but also because of its architecture.

A an indoor courtyard in the museum of anthropology in Xalapa. There is an ancient stone monument on display and many leafy rainforest plants. A concrete grid which is part of the building can be seen in the background.

From one of the halls of the Anthropology Museum of Xalapa.

Despite being Brutalist in manner, the museum building — designed by architect Paul Balev and opened in 1986 — creates a refreshing welcoming atmosphere and feels light and wonderfully breezy.

With an elegant blurring of indoors and outdoors — which is achieved by using concrete walls that many places feature a grid of small squares open to the outside — walking between the galleries the visitor might at times find themselves confused about whether they are indoors or in some type of a courtyard. Some places the concrete walls are replaced with segments of metal fence railing, which might or might not be gates towards the garden. The huge amounts of big-leaved rainforest plants generously distributed throughout the interior further blends the outside with the inside.

This interplay between the concrete, the metal railings, greenery, and air, transports the museum visitor to a fantasy of stumbling — explorer-like — upon long lost temple ruins in thick jungle. As a matter of fact the museum reminds us that Brutalist architecture might have a quite natural place within the tradition of Mesoamerican monumental architecture: The concrete, used in the way it is used here, spurs associations to the region’s pyramids and other archaeological remains of pre-Columbian buildings. The stairways leading up or down a few feet, scattered around in the building and connecting different plateaus to each other, certainly reads as a quote from this ancient architecture.

And in addition to the fascinating architecture, the collections — and the top notch curating of the collections — makes for a grand day out!

Parque-Museo La Venta

An Olmec head displayed outside in the Parque-Museo La Venta. A boy is sitting cross-legged in front of it.

An Olmec head on display in the Parque-Museo La Venta.

Appearing suddenly out of nowhere in a state of full development, [the Olmecs] constitute a culture that seems to have been the root, the mother culture from which the later and better known (Maya, Totonac, Zapotec, etc.) cultures sprang. (Covarrubias, 1944)

La Venta was an archaeological site of the Olmec civilization far north-west in Tabasco.

When oil industry took off in the area back in the 1950’s, many of the artifacts from the site were moved down to Villahermosa, to be displayed in what is now called Parque-Museo La Venta.

The Olmec heads, along with other stone monuments, are spread out along a walk through dense rainforest, with a zoological garden thrown in for good measure.

Palenque

This site of the ancient Maya city is situated in close proximity to the thick jungle around. This gives the grounds an atmosphere of romantic discovery, an atmosphere which is thick enough to drown out the massive amounts of tourists that will share the experience with you.

Photo of the Temple of the Sun in Palenque Archaeological Zone. behind the temple is thick jungle.

Temple of the Sun, which is part of the Temple of the Cross Complex in the Palenque Archeological Zone

Personally I almost like the domestic structures best, probably because they are hidden deeper into the jungle, and even have trees growing on top of them. There were almost no other visitors in this section when we were there, which made it extra magical.

The jungle around the main aarchaeological zone of Palenque. A little boy is walking away from the photographer, towards an ancient stairway. There are trees growing on top of the ruins.

Exploring the domestic quarters of ancient Palenque.

Monte Albán

The journey from the city center of Oaxaca and up to the Monte Albán archaeological site is always a thrill, as the bus winds its way up the narrow road on the side of the mountain. And the excitement is only enhanced by the thought of what awaits. One of the lures of Monte Albán is that it was created and re-created by so many different population groups over such a long period of time – Olmecs, Zapotecs, Mixtecs – and the resulting site is a magical place which never fails to offer a lightness and a welcoming breeze plus tons of cultural fascination.

The little museum attached to the site is worth a visit, although much of the treasure found in the tombs is displayed downtown, in the Museum of Cultures of Oaxaca, Santo Domingo, which you absolutely must visit if you're in Oaxaca.

A photo of the archaeological zone of Monte Alban, taken from some distance up of one of the pyramids. There are people milling around on the ground, around a central ancient stone building.

The "sacred topography" of Monte Albán.

Inhabited over a period of 1,500 years by a succession of peoples – Olmecs, Zapotecs and Mixtecs – the terraces, dams, canals, pyramids and artificial mounds of Monte Albán were literally carved out of the mountain and are the symbols of a sacred topography. (UNESCO)

More inspiration

When I need more inspiration to fantasize about new travels around Mexico, I often turn to the videos distributed by The Mexican Secretary of Tourism:  Visit México . They're slick and beautiful and romantic, and sometimes I'm in the mood for exactly that. Here's an example.

Sources:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 12th August 2016. "The giant pyramid hidden inside a mountain." Retrieved April 24, 2023 from  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160812-the-giant-pyramid-hidden-inside-a-mountain 

Covarrubias, Miguel. "La Venta: Colossal Heads and Jaguar Gods." Dyn 6 November 1944, pp 24-33.

Høyem, Martin. 2022. "Tropical Brutalism." Other Things in General. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from  https://otherthingsingeneral.com/article/xalapa-museo-de-antropologia-olmec-head/ 

Mexico Lugares Turisticos. (n.d). "179 Archaeological Sites in Mexico." Retrieved April 24, 2023, from  https://www.lugaresturisticosenmexico.com/en/mexico-archaeological-sites/ 

Robb, Matthew H (ed.). 2018. Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and University of California Press.

UNESCO (n.d.). Historic Centre of Oaxaca and Archaeological Site of Monte Albán. UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Retrieved April 24, 2023, from  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/415/ 

West, Rebecca. 2023. Survivors in Mexico. New Haven: Yale University Press.

In this stone relief, which is on display at Mexico City’s Museo Templo Mayor, the deity Tlaltecuhtli is standing with its back towards the viewer, squatting as if giving birth, and bending her heads backward so that she looks at you with her head upside down. Sticking out of her mouth is a sacrificial knife.

The courtyard of Museo Nacional de Antropología.

Standing on top of Pirámide de la Luna, looking down at Plaza de la Luna with the Pirámide del Sol in the background.

Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remediosa on top of the great pyramid of Puebla, Tlachihualtepetl. In the background rises the steam from the volcano Popocatépetl.

From one of the halls of the Anthropology Museum of Xalapa.

An Olmec head on display in the Parque-Museo La Venta.

Temple of the Sun, which is part of the Temple of the Cross Complex in the Palenque Archeological Zone

Exploring the domestic quarters of ancient Palenque.

The "sacred topography" of Monte Albán.