Xólotl Site Museum

The Museo de Sitio Xólotl is the on-site museum to the north of the famous ruins at Tenayuca. For those who’ve already visited the National Museum of Anthropology, it’s a run by the same people (INAH). But here you get a much smaller vision of the Tenayuca area and of course, far fewer crowds.

The museum is dedicated to providing the big picture of the people who settled here in the Pre-Classic period. But it extends through the colonial period too. A smaller museum preceded this one when the major excavations in the area came to a conclusion in the 1930s.

In the 1980s, that original museum was superseded by this one and the entire focus was expanded based on learning since that time, and since the establishment of the INAH in 1939. It’s been expanded and re-designed numerous times in these intervening years.

The museum is centered around a permanent exhibition space, but a big audio-visual room presents a documentary on the Tenayuca pyramids and the entire site. It also covers excavation work completed over the past 100 years. The collection includes tripod vessels, anthropomorphic figurines, and stone monoliths. Some documentary paintings and photographs help to tell the story of the people plus the reconstruction of the ancient place. The museum also houses some ceramic and stone materials plus human and animal skeletal remains found here.

Visitors to Xólotl can take advantage of the smaller crowds to really appreciate the artifacts and materials recovered here. Like the pyramids, the museum is a few minutes walk north from the Metrobús station, Tenayuca, at the end of Line 3.

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.