Museo Regional de Antropología Carlos Pellicer

The Museo Regional de Antropología occupies a modernist building on the banks of the Río Grijalva and houses an extensive collection of Olmec, Maya, and other pre-Columbian artefacts from Tabasco and the broader Gulf Coast region. The collection spans ceramics, figurines, jade ornaments, stone carvings, and painted pottery, displayed with informative context.

The museum provides the indoor counterpart to the outdoor Parque-Museo La Venta: where the park shows the monumental sculpture, this museum fills in the cultural and chronological background. A single visit combining both gives you a solid grounding in Olmec civilisation and why Tabasco occupies a pivotal place in Mesoamerican history.

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A story
The museum is named for Carlos Pellicer (1897–1977), a native of Villahermosa who became one of Mexico's most celebrated 20th-century poets and also one of its great champions of pre-Columbian culture. It was Pellicer who organised the rescue of the La Venta Olmec sculptures, essentially inventing the concept of Parque-Museo La Venta. He donated his own collection of artefacts to the state, which became the core of this museum.

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