Fodor's Expert Review Museo Popol Vuh

Religious figures, animals, and mythological half-animal–half-man creatures with stolid eyes, hawkish noses, and fierce poses inhabit this museum. Though much smaller than the city's other museums, Popol Vuh has an interesting display of well-preserved stone carvings from the Preclassic period, with the earliest pieces dating from 1500 BC. Some statues are quite large, all the more impressive given that they were each cut from a single stone. Also look for the "painted books," which were historical records kept by the Maya. The most famous is the museum's namesake, the Popol Vuh, otherwise known as the Mayan Bible, which was lost (and later recovered) after it was translated into Spanish. An ample collection of colonial artifacts and rotating special exhibits round out the museum's offerings. Monthly evening public lectures, in Spanish, deal with topics related to the institution's holdings.