Monday. National Museum of the American Indian
Today we visited the National Museum of the American Indian and Pioneer Works. At the NMAI I really got into a tourist mood. I went to the second floor, put on my music, and just walked. I took my time to read everything and study the artifacts and accompanying pictures. Art of the Ancient America’s has never been my forte but I do enjoy learning more about it when an opportunity presents itself. This particular exhibit focused on Central America’s ancient civilizations which is not something I see a lot of. For the most part most Art of the Ancient America’s is Mayan, Aztec, or Inca. It was amazing to see those cultures represented from Colombia to El Salvador to Costa Rica.
There was a wall that had depictions of animals commonly found on ancient artifacts and what they represented. On the side of that same wall they had illustrations and brief description of what the male and female figures meant as well. All text in the exhibit was in English and Spanish, as well as a short video on present day archeological sites in Central America where graduate students study.
Throughout my visit I was constantly in closed proximity to a grandmother and her two grandkids. She spend about 10 minutes reading all the text with her grandkids. She answered all their questions and made sure they understood as much as they could before continuing on to the next part of the exhibit. It was great to see an educational moment between the family and to see little kids be so excited to learn about a different culture that wasn’t their own.
