Explore objects from various areas of the Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection to enrich visitors' understanding of their content, style, and historical context. The collection includes sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, and textiles created by Native Americans, the inhabitants of Teotihuacan, and the Olmec, Maya, and Aztecs of ancient Mesoamerica - the geographical area comprising New Mexico, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador. Includes lesson plans for the classroom, maps, glossary, books, and art projects for the home.

Pre-Columbian art from Mexico and Central America displayed in a series of galleries communicates the power and sophistication of the mysterious cultures that rose and fell in ancient America. Emphasis is placed on the ceramic and stone arts of West Mexico, Costa Rica and Panamá. A gallery devoted to the famous "Limestone Tomb of Lord Pacal" includes a lifesize reproduction of the elaborately decorated and highly symbolic limestone sarcophagus excavated at the pyramid in the Mayan City of Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. Other works of art from the ancient Mayan civilization complete the exhibit.