Maybe it’s something about the primitive shapes and references in the relics of past civilizations that draws us in. Something about how that half-lion, half-serpent that appears so familiar and recognizable yet an object from mythology. The idea of worshipping objects such as the sun, of carrying out sacrificial ceremonies and of building temples in the name of these gods seems out of our world, so far in the past it’s hard to imagine.

But these civilizations were far from primitive, having calculated time and constructed engineering marvels in a time before automation. They created sun stones to mark the course of time, they charted the path of the moon and identified that stars. And at Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology, you meet the Toltecs, Zapotecs, Mixtec, Olmecs, Mayans and the Aztecs all at once through the few tools and relics they’ve thrown into the future. The museum is a sprawling 20 acres covering 23 different exhibition rooms and green spaces. Stepping in, you immerse yourself in a time before horses in Latin America, a Pre-Columbia almost impossible to imagine.