Museo de Antropologia de Xalapa (MAX)

The Museo de Antropología de Xalapa, commonly known as MAX, opened in its current purpose-built galleries in 1986 and has grown into Mexico's second-most important anthropology museum after the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Its collection focuses on the pre-Hispanic cultures of the state of Veracruz, spanning the Olmec civilization of the Gulf Coast lowlands, roughly 1200 to 400 BCE, through Totonac, Huastec, and other regional cultures active up to the Spanish conquest. The museum's best-known holdings are several Olmec colossal heads and other monumental Olmec sculpture, including basalt altars and figures brought from sites such as San Lorenzo and Tres Zapotes, displayed alongside smaller jade and ceramic Olmec pieces. Totonac galleries include the museum's collection of sonrientes, or smiling figures, distinctive hollow ceramic sculptures unique to central Veracruz, while Huastec rooms display sculpture and pottery from the state's northern reaches. The building itself, designed with a series of terraced, light-filled galleries descending a hillside, was conceived to let natural light showcase the stone sculpture, and an outdoor sculpture garden extends the display into landscaped grounds. The curatorial approach is broadly chronological and region by region, moving from the Olmec galleries at the entrance through Classic Veracruz and Totonac material to Huastec and postclassic rooms further along the route. The museum has undergone periodic gallery renovations since opening, most recently updating lighting and interpretive text while keeping its original architectural layout intact.