New museum in Mérida will feature the “buried treasures” of the Maya Train

40 million pesos (US$2 million) will be invested in the construction of the Maya Train museum in Mérida.

Diego Prieto Hernández, head of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), reported that the operation of the museum that will exhibit findings from the Maya train construction, located in the Ateneo Peninsular, will require 30 million pesos, in addition to the 10 million that the National Fund for the Promotion of Tourism (Fonatur) has already granted them.

He said that they would open a part in the second half of 2023.

“The Ateneo is a splendid building of enormous architectural and historical value that must be taken care of, in one part it will be a museum in which they will present some of the outstanding findings in the salvaged Mayan archaeological wealth, in addition, they want to recover the garden inside the premises.

He specified that additionally there will be a single window for the management of procedures in the area of ​​​​historical monuments of Yucatan, collection areas, shelter, treatment, and laboratories for archaeological material from the Mayan train, many of which are already working on the restoration, classification, and ordering of these materials.

He explained that the following findings have been registered:

• 25,340 locations
• 1,385 personal property items such as metates and ceramics
• 423 bones
• 816 natural features associated with the archaeological context such as caves, wells, and cenotes
• 575 thousand 377 ceramic fragments were analyzed from sections 1 to 4 of the train
• 431 complete vessels that are in the process of analysis and restoration.

One of the main finds is a pre-Hispanic Mayan canoe.

TYT Newsroom