Season 2 at Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology

We recently returned from Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology where we shot an episode for the upcoming season. The director of the episode, Rebecca Snow and Executive Producer, Robert Lang, were able to explore Mexico’s history, from the first millennium to the Spanish conquest in 1521. As Rebecca Snow said, “Mexico was a powerhouse of incredible civilizations, so we had a lot of history to choose from.”

The National Museum contains some of the world’s most significant archaeological and anthropological artifacts from the pre-Colombian era of Mexico, including the 16th century Aztec statue of Xochipilli. But as usual, Museum Secrets went beyond the regular galleries to explore some of the museum’s top secrets.

One of the rare places that we will take you to is the ‘underworld’ of the museum. We filmed a segment in the ‘Bone Room’ of the anthropology department in the museum basement. “I met American and Canadian academics who had never been granted access to beneath the museum before, so this was a real treat,” said Director Rebecca Snow. “They have a collection of around 20,000 ancient and historic bones down there. Walking down there at night was a bit creepy,” she said.

In order to get a good shot of the city, the team managed to get access to the heli-pad of the tallest building in Mexico City (also the second tallest in Latin America), and from 255 meters above the city, the sensation was close to one of flying.

Another memorable location on the episode shoot was a cenote, a flooded cave, in the Yucatan, that was revered by the Mayans. “We got to do some cave diving, 24 meters below the surface of the ground into the water with archaeologists to search for ancient artifacts,” said Rebecca. “At midday the sun cast a beam through the roof of the cave and it created a shaft of light which hit the water below. It’s hard to explain how beautiful it was – You’ll have to watch the episode!”

Along with the many great places visited, the upcoming episode in Mexico City will reveal amazing stories about human sacrifice, bravery, innovation, engineering and some surprising revelations.

Stay tuned here, where we’ll reveal more about this episode closer to the Season 2 broadcast in the new year on History Television Canada.