Museo Regional Cuauhnáhuac (Palacio de Cortés)

Museo Regional Cuauhnáhuac occupies the Palacio de Cortés, the fortress-palace built in the 1520s for Hernán Cortés atop the remains of a Tlahuica pyramid in downtown Cuernavaca, and presents its collection in a broadly chronological sequence tracing Morelos's history from pre-Hispanic settlement through the 20th century. Ground-floor galleries display artifacts from the Tlahuica and earlier Xochicalco cultures, including ceramics, stone tools, and architectural fragments, some displayed alongside exposed sections of the original pre-Hispanic pyramid incorporated into the building's foundations. Upper galleries move through the colonial period, covering the encomienda system and the sugar-hacienda economy that shaped Morelos for three centuries, before concluding with rooms dedicated to the Mexican Revolution and the Zapatista agrarian movement centered in the state. The museum's centerpiece is the second-floor open corridor mural painted by Diego Rivera in 1930, a sweeping narrative of conquest, colonial exploitation, and revolutionary uprising commissioned by U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow, which anchors the museum's overall historical arc. The building's own architecture, from its thick defensive walls to its arcaded courtyards, forms as much a part of the exhibit as the objects it houses, and INAH-led conservation has preserved both the structure and its collection while allowing visible pre-Hispanic stonework to remain exposed to the public in select rooms.