Mexico

Turquoise pieces fit together across the surface of the double-headed serpent. Elsewhere, carved stone and painted pottery offer different ways of describing people, animals and the sacred. The room includes material associated with Olmec, Maya, Aztec or Mexica, and Mixtec societies. The deep red walls and corbelled ceiling shape the gallery around those objects. The design was developed with Mexican archaeological collaborators. A Yaxchilan lintel and a Huaxtec figure give further opportunities to compare stone carving at different scales and in different settings. Keep the cultural names with the objects as you look. The room spans a long history, and similar materials served different purposes in different places. Mosaic asks you to follow the joining of small pieces, while relief carving uses a single surface to give figures depth.