The Museo de Antropologia de Xalapa (MAX) is the second most important anthropology museum in Mexico after the Museo Nacional in Mexico City, and for pre-Columbian Olmec material it arguably surpasses it. The collection includes ten of the seventeen known Olmec colossal heads — massive carved basalt portraits of Olmec rulers, some over three metres tall, displayed in outdoor garden settings where their scale can be properly appreciated.
The museum building itself is a fine piece of 1980s modernist design: a series of interconnected galleries stepping down a hillside, with the collection moving chronologically from the Olmec through the Totonac, Huastec, and other Gulf Coast cultures. The display cases and lighting are well designed, and the flow from room to room through patios and gardens is unusually pleasant for a museum of this size. Allow at least two hours. The museum is about two kilometres north of the city centre — easily reached by taxi or a short bus ride.