Palacio Cantón (Museo Regional de Antropología)

Palacio Cantón was built in 1911 as a private mansion for General Francisco Cantón Rosado, a former state governor and one of the wealthiest figures of Yucatán's henequen boom, at the height of the fiber export economy that made Mérida one of Latin America's richest cities per capita in the early 20th century. Designed by Italian architect Enrico Deserti in the eclectic Beaux-Arts style favored by the era's elite, the palace sits on Paseo de Montejo, the boulevard of grand mansions that Mérida's henequen barons built in conscious imitation of Paris's grand avenues. Since 1966 the building has housed the Museo Regional de Antropología, whose permanent collection traces Yucatán's Maya civilization from its Preclassic origins through the Postclassic period, organized chronologically across the mansion's original salons and grand staircase. Exhibited pieces include carved stelae, ceramic vessels, jade ornaments, and skeletal material illustrating Maya cranial modification and dental inlay practices. The building's marble staircase, wrought-iron detailing, and painted ceilings remain largely original, restored periodically to preserve the mansion's early 20th-century opulence alongside its archaeological displays, creating a deliberate juxtaposition between the building's boom-era wealth and the pre-Hispanic civilization whose land and labor helped generate it.