The American Museum of Natural History in New York exhibits unique photography, motion pictures, and many other anthropological exhibits. This Museum was fascinating because it shows pieces of art describing other world cultures and their way of life. These artifacts and pieces of art help one understand other people’s culture and their traditional beliefs. The museum is divided into three floors and each floor has a particular topic that it covers. The first floor had artifacts of human biology, evolution of species, American Northwest Coast people, and eskimos. The second floor focused on people from South America, Asia, and Africa. The third floor exhibited people from North America specifically the Eastern woodland, and primates. One of the most exciting trips in the museum is the sculptures and live images of dinosaurs. The Museum has a dinosaur hall where the showcase the different skeletons of dinosaurs who were believed to have lived in the ancient times on earth.
The African people hall was compelling because it was rich in terms of culture, their religious way of life, and their structural organization. The museum also highlights and captures the environments that the people in Africa lived in. The museum had a lot of African masks that the people of Africa in their respective countries wore during religious or ritual ceremonies. Apparently, these masks were used to represents the ancestral spirits and the gods that the African people served. Some of the sculptured masks looked heavy to wear (Lucas 67). In addition, there were sculptures and pictures of African women with marks on their faces to symbolize beauty. It is enthralling to think that this form of tradition is no longer practiced by the African people. All this form of identity and rich culture had been wiped down by the colonists.
Another interesting thing in the museum was the Aztec stone of the sun. Aztecs were known for their ancient civilization where they built buildings, stones sculptures, and monuments. One of the monuments in the hall was the stone of sun, which symbolized the Aztecs calendar (amnh.org). The stone of the sun was a form of ancient calendar in that the Aztecs drew signs on the stone and these signs symbolized where the sun was facing and their belief system. This means that the Aztecs could used the stone of the sun during rituals. This is because all the symbols drawn on the stone were symbolic of the link between the sun and the accent as it described their way of life. The museum used paint to color the symbols on the stone with the aim of describing what each meant (Lucas 76). For example, the inner part of the stone showed the sun, which was perceived to be god. The yellow part of the stone stood for the cosmogonic myths of the Aztec people. This is in parallel to the solar system. The outermost circle had four cardinal directions with different meanings. This piece of art draws the Aztec’s beliefs and how they believed that the sun was their god. It is impressive and remarkable that without the influence of Christianity, the ancient people believed in a higher deity who was responsible in controlling nature and events in life.
The exhibits in the evolution hall were also interesting because it demonstrates how human evolutionized and became the way they were. The museum uses holographic pictures to demonstrate this evolution of man. One of the facts that were written in the exhibit hall is that humans had to evolve as a way of adapting to their environment. The pictures portrayed in the museum show how the human body evolved in terms of changing its body and muscles so that they could adapt to surrounding environment. This idea of evolving in order to adapt to a certain environments paint the idea of natural selection. According to Charles Darwin theory of natural selection, when things have to change their traits according to the environment they are in to survive. For example, human brain capacity increased and their body posture changed from walking in quadruple limbs to bipedalism. In addition, bipedalism composure shaped the human skeletal parts such that human’s posture could fit into locomoting on two limbs (amnh.org). In addition, the human teeth decreased in size as a result of change in diet and surroundings. This indicates that evolution of humans took centuries to evolve to our current state. This piece is intriguing and educative because it tried to explain how humans came to be.
In conclusion, the American Museum of Natural History in New York is a captivating place because the museum has a lot of exhibits on various world topics. The museum exhibits ancient people’s way of life and also their ancient history. The African culture was diverse and cultural. One of the things that caught my eye is the fact that ancient people performed rituals to their gods and ancestral spirits. This indicates that humans have believed in a conformed to a higher deity for a number of years. Though the museum did not represent any European culture, it was impressive to see other people’s cultural and traditional beliefs. The museum also exhibits live skeletons of the dinosaurs that existed a long time ago. In addition, the evolution hall shows how living things existed to the way they are today. For example, humans have taken a lot of years to evolve to the way they are today. The museum demonstrates how human evolved from walking on quadruples to becoming bipedal. American Museum of Natural History is a captivating place and is full of information regarding people from the global community.
Works Cited
"American Museum of Natural History." AMNH. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.amnh.org/>.
Lucas, Frederic A.. General guide to the exhibition halls of the American Museum of Natural History. New York: The Museum, 2011. Print.
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