After my adventure the previous day, I had a more sedate day at the Shanghai museum to see the “ On Top of the World Tree: Ancient Civilizations of the Americas” exhibition.
The museum was situated near the People’s Square (人民廣場) metro station. An adult entry ticket set me back 148RMB. As described in the elaborate English title it was an exhibition on the history and culture of America’s most important pre-Columbian empires - the Aztecs, Mayas, Olmecs and Incas.
The exhibition took over the entire four stories of the museum. There was some English text on some of the artefacts but not enough for my liking. Some of the staff were dressed in ancient Meso American dress which made them look somewhat bizarre, there must have been a reason. The exhibition was divided into a seperate storey for each empire, as someone who has been to Tikal in Guatemala, I do have a minor interest in this part of the world. The display was well presented and did not overwhelm the visitor with too much information. Like everything in China today, there was good use of media technology to reproduce what the ancient cities would have looked like.
My own gripe was that there should have been more seating for tired legs, I had to retreat to the museum restaurant to rest more than once. Another noticeable thing was that it was not very crowded, although my visit was on a weekday.
By lunchtime I was done, and headed to the local 蘭州拉麵 for some nourishment.
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| CGI representation of what a Maya city would have looked like |
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| CGI representation of an underground river |
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