Annotations for Places: Mexico--mexico State--teotihuacan

Visitors to Mexico City are familiar with the ruins of Teotihuacan, and its pyramids to the sun and the moon. Now, a rare collection of art from that ancient Mexican site is on display at San Francisco's M. H. de Young Museum. The masks, sculptures and mural fragments assembled from collections around the world give the most comprehensive view ever of the city of Teotihuacan, and a civilization which lasted some 800 years. Isabel Alegria prepared this report.

[Footsteps] Kathleen Barron, the show's curator leads the way into a small gallery hung with portions of murals from Teotihuacan, that date back some 1300 years. Their surfaces seem flecked with thousands of tiny stars.

Isn't it wonderful the way they just sparkle and gleam? The shiny specs of Micah were an intended effect of the ancient Teotihuacan artists. They're not something that just occurred over time. You have to imagine the beautiful patios within the apartment compounds would've been painted with repeating scenes of elaborate ritual figures in profile at one after another.

These mural pieces and dozens more were bequeathed to the museum in 1976 by a San Francisco architect, Harold Wagner. He bought them legally though originally they were stolen from the Teotihuacan by looters. Kathy Barron says, Wagner's home was laid out with the priceless fragments like so many puzzle pieces on tables and floors. To help preserve and restore the fragments, museum staff decided to call on Mexican specialists. And in a move that surprised many, Barron says the museum also decided to return most of the treasures to Mexico. Although, US law did not require it.

We felt that because there were such great numbers of Teotihuacan murals in the collection and many, many duplications, that it would be an important gesture and important ethical stand for our museum to take a statement against looting against this kind of destruction.

Barron says experts from the US and Mexico worked closely for nearly a decade on the murals. Their work inspired the exhibit and also prompted a special outreach effort by the de Young to the Hispanic community. Today, a colorful mural painted by Latino artists beckons museum goers in to see the exhibit. There are Spanish signs throughout and Mexican-American singer Linda Ronstadt hosts a show's audio tour.

[chimes] On the wall to the right and the center case is a fabulous incensario that is a true one of a kind. [chimes and shell rattles]

Besides the murals, the exhibit features elaborately crafted incense burners and ritual figurines used by the people of Teotihuacan, which at its height was the world's sixth-largest city and a major Mesoamerican ceremonial site. The exhibit shows Teotihuacan's influence on the Aztecs who came some 600 years later. One gallery shows an extraordinary collection of greenstone, alabaster, and onyx masks used in the hundreds of temples that once lined Teotihuacan street of the dead. 18-year old museum goer, Judith Torres found the masks unsettling.

It's kind of a scary feeling. They're mean looking and they have very strong features and it feels like somebody's actually looking at you or somebody's going to come out and say something.

Teotihuacan was dedicated primarily to two principle deities, a storm god, an early inspiration for the Aztec rain god Tlaloc. And an earth goddess, who some scholars think may distinguish Teotihuacan as the only Mesoamerican civilization with a goddess as supreme deity. Curator Kathy Barron.

She can be very peaceful and very calm, a giver of gifts associated with treasures, associated with nature. She can also be a destructive power as we see in the mural in the corner where she's rendered virtually faceless, but she's got claws and barred teeth.

Barron says some experts believe Mexico's Virgen de Guadalupe is a continuation of this ancient earth goddess in her beneficent form. These Latino visitors to the exhibit found their own examples of how the art of Teotihuacan resounds in their lives today.

I have a brother named Tlaloc, so I saw his actual feature in what his name really represented. And I knew what it represented, but I didn't see exactly what it represented. There was a different name for it.

Some of the statues, some of the little ornaments they had, some of them my grandmother had objects that are similar to that, pots and such.

To us, that's like our culture and we look at it and we're amazed, but then it makes us proud of who we are. And if somebody else sees it, they'll just be amazed but I mean, it means nothing to them. It's just a work of art to them that it's nice, but to us it means a lot.

When Teotihuacan, city of the Gods, ends its run at the M. H. de Young Museum, the collection of Teotihuacan's murals will remain on display as part of the museum's permanent collection. For Latino USA, I'm Isabel Alegria in San Francisco.