Mexico celebrates independence with pre-Hispanic ‘greatness’ exhibition

Mexico City, Sep 27 (EFE).- Mexico’s government inaugurated Monday an exhibition at the National Museum of Anthropology on the “greatness of Mexico” with archaeological pieces and codices returned to the country from other nations seeking to revalue prehispanic culture.

“Today is a very special day, today we commemorate 200 years of our independence, today Sep. 27. It will be a day of commemorations, of exhibitions on the greatness of Mexico,” said President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, during his press conference at the National Palace.

“The Greatness of Mexico,” Culture Secretary Alejandra Frausto said, is a great exhibition with more than 1,500 pieces.

“Of which more than 900 are seen for the first time, coming from abroad in temporary transfers or from warehouses of safeguards and seizures,” she said.

This exhibition of pieces from the Mayan, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Aztec and Mixtec cultures will be held in two venues: in the Ibero-American Room of the Public Education Ministry -where 1,145 pieces are displayed, and in the National Anthropology Museum, where there are 380 pieces.

Diego Prieto Hernandez, general director of the Anthropology and History National Institute, said that among the objects are 264 national pieces, 879 repatriations from five countries – of the more than 1,500 that have been obtained in the last three years – as well as two artistic work loans.

Baltazar Brito, Anthropology and History National Library director and the exhibition’s curator, said the display covers scenes of daily life throughout the centuries and although it is a long period it seeks to be “a mirror in which all Mexicans can see their past.”

The exhibition – which can be visited in both venues until April 2022 – covers four axes: territory, spirituality, individual and symbolism. EFE

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