El DF y Teotihuacan

We couldn't take pictures in the actual exhibit, but here are some posters they had up outside.

Also in Mexico City's Zocalo (the big square in the center) was the Gregory Colbert Nomadic Museum. He has really cool photography and word on the street is that the whole museum is made of recycled materials and it is packed up and travels all over the world.
Here's his web site if you want to check it out.
http://www.ashesandsnow.org/

These are things used in an offering to the gods.

Musical instruments.

These next pictures are a mix of Aztec, Mayan and Oaxacan artifacts.

This is a sample of an Aztec codex. They used pictures to record information.
In nahuatl pictures can be used to express solely an idea, or they can be used together to express a sound or relationship.

Coatlicue (meaning skirt of snakes) or Teteoinan (meaning the mother of gods), according to Aztec mythology, is the goddess of the earth, both life and death. Her skirt of snakes symbolizes fertility and her necklace of hands, hearts and skulls comes from her living off of human sacrifices. She is believed to have given birth to the moon and the stars, and to Huitzilopochtli the god of the sun and war.

The Aztecs had two calenders, Xiuhpohualli (year count) consisting of 365 days, considered an agricultural calender and Tonalpohualli (count of days) consisting of 260 days, considered a sacred calendar. Every 52 years the 2 calenders would coincide along with the first appearance of the pleiades asterism also known as the 7 sisters (a star cluster), beginning the calendar cycles again.

Here's the real version of the previous picture.

This is me in front of a representation of a stone carving. It sure was nice of them to paint it to match my shirt.

We also went to el Museo de Anthropologia/ the museum of anthropology where they have artifacts from the Aztec and Mayan cultures among many others.

I didn't get a good picture of the pyramid of the sun... but it's ginormous, as you can see in this picture. Those tiny dots on the top are people. My legs were sore for days after climbing up and down pyramids all day, and some of the steps are really tall and thin... kind of scary...

This is the pyramid of the moon from the top of the pyramid of the sun.

This is Teotihuacan, there's the bigger pyramid of the sun in front and then the smaller pyramid of the moon behind it.

This man is dressed in another (perhaps earlier) native style, burning herbs (we thought sage...) as part of a native practice.

This is a guy dressed in native style, playing a shell in the zocalo (big open square in the center of Mexico City)

In the government building they have various murals painted on the walls, representing the conquest.

This is a statue built in honor of Benito Juarez (an ex-president of Mexico, well known for being awesome... I think just in general).

This last weekend my study abroad group went to Mexico city and Teotihuacan (ruins out side of Mexico City)
This building is the Palacio de Bellas Artes/ The palace of fine arts.