Mexico City, Mexico — Mexico has brought part of its history to Montreal with archaeological and ethnographic pieces. The pieces were created by the cultures of the wetlands of the Gulf of Mexico and put on display April 18.
The exhibition, made up of almost 300 archaeological and ethnographic pieces, will open on April 18, 2024 at the Pointe-à-Callière Museum in Montreal.
According to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), the display will include works such as the Scarified Woman from Tamtoc and Ofrenda 4 from La Venta, which will delve into more than 3,000 years of stories and traditions.
Organized by the federal Ministry of Culture, through the INAH and in collaboration with the Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archeology and History of Canada, the Olmecs and the civilizations of the Gulf of Mexico exhibition will provide an approach to the legacy of countless beings, ingenious and deeply connected to nature, who have lived in the aforementioned Mexican geography.
The exhibition arrives on Canadian territory with 272 masterpieces, which can be viewed from April 18 to September 15, 2024.
Pieces such as a colossal head from San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, an archaeological site located in Veracruz, the Offering 4 from La Venta in Tabasco, and the sculptures of the Scarified Woman and the Huasteco Adolescent, both from the current state of San Luis Potosí, are included.
These pre-Columbian objects will coexist with ethnographic pieces from the collections of the National Museum of Anthropology (MNA) made by Nahua, Pame, Totonac, Otomi, Tepehua and Huastec communities: cotton and wool textiles, ceramics and masks, from Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo and Puebla.
The archaeological pieces come from the collections of the MNA and the Directorate of Archaeological Studies, in Mexico City, the Anthropology Museum of Xalapa, the INAH Veracruz Center, the Tuxteco Regional Museum and the El Tajín Archaeological Zone, in Veracruz, La Venta Park-Museum, the “Carlos Pellicer” Regional Museum of Anthropology and the Pomoná Site Museum, in Tabasco, as well as the Regional Museum of Puebla, and the Tamtoc Site Museum, in San Luis Potosí.
Under the curatorship of the deputy director of Archeology at the MNA, Laura del Olmo Frese, the exhibition will offer a look at three cultural regions, the Olmec area, the center of Veracruz and the Huasteca, throughout temporalities that start from 3,000 years. in the past, from the Preclassical era (1700 BC – 200 AD), until contact with the Spanish, in the 16th century.
“Through a careful selection of artifacts, visitors will be able to immerse themselves in the richness and complexity of different societies, and explore in detail their ways of life, beliefs, exchange networks and cultural achievements,” says the archaeologist.
It will also be the first time that the Pointe-à-Callière Museum of Archeology and History, opened in 1992, at the exact point where Quebec City was founded, around 1642, will dedicate an exhibition exclusively to pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures.