page_title: Museo Nacional de las Culturas
section_title: National Cultural Museum
hierarchical_section_title: Museo Nacional de las Culturas / National Cultural Museum
caption_attribution_description: Español: Vitrina en la que se muestran diferentes tipos de títeres
context_page_description: The Museo Nacional de las Culturas is a national museum in Mexico City dedicated to education about the world's cultures, both past and present. It is housed in a colonial-era building that used to be the mint for making coins. Prior to this, the site was the home of the location of the Moctezuma's Black House. The mint was moved to Apartado Street in 1850, and the building was used for various purposes until it was converted to its current use in 1966.
context_section_description: This colonial-era building was named a national monument in 1931, but when the new Museum of Anthropology opened the site was left vacant. Beatriz Barba and Julio César Olivé proposed that the space be converted into a museum featuring world cultures. After renovation, the building opened on 5 December 1965, with Barba serving as its deputy director until 1976  as the Cultural Museum, with rooms dedicated to demonstrating cultural artifacts from around the world.  This museum dedicated to the world's past and present cultures is the only one of its type in Latin America. The museum has sixteen permanent display rooms and three rooms for temporary exhibits. Some of the rooms are dedicated prehistoric cultures remains such as cave paintings and implements associated with the origins of sedentary, agricultural societies. Other rooms are devoted to ancient Mesopotamia as well as ancient Greece and Rome.
  In the Age of Exploration room, items from the time of initial European contact with the Americas are on display. For modern cultures, there are exhibits from all continents and some dedicated to cultures little-known in Mexico such as that of Samoa or New Ireland. Since its founding, the museum has received over 12,000 pieces from around the world. These pieces include textiles, glass objects, porcelain, photographs, arms, kimonos, masks, jewelry and sculptures. Many of these objects are originals and some are quite old. The museum still receives donations of objects. One of the most recent is of board inlaid with mother-of-pearl from Vietnam.
caption: Part of a display on Wayang
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