Ameca, located 60 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara, has a small but interesting museum that is well worth visiting if you happen to be in the area.
Why would you happen to be in the area? One reason could be because you’re going to cycle along the section of the Vias Verdes which starts in Ameca. This “rails to trails” bicycle path runs east to La Vega Lake where there’s a picturesque park good for bird watching, and continues on all the way to Tala (a distance of 37 kilometers).
You might also be passing by Ameca in order to get to the Giant Stone Balls of Ahualulco, to the north, or to the fascinating towns of Guachinango, Talpa and Mascota to the west.
The Ameca Museum is located only 250 meters due south of the recently renovated Ameca train station, inside a grandiose old building which once housed Ameca’s Hilarión Romero Hospital.
As is the case with quite a few small-town museums, all the items on display were once part of the private collection of a distinguished local citizen, in this case, the late Filemón Gutiérrez Ramírez, who, we were told, had been keenly interested in archaeology and paleontology during his lifetime. It is thanks to people such as Señor Gutiérrez that many precious archaeological finds remain in Mexico instead of ending up in California or Chicago. These collectors, like Federico A. Solórzano, who recently passed away, deserve a vote of thanks because they succeed as private individuals to accomplish what INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History), the official “protector” of Mexico’s antiquities, has never been able to do.
Fortunately, this particular museum has benefited from the assistance of two eminent archaeologists, Dr. Otto Schöndube and Dr. Rodrigo Esparza, so the curators have a good idea which pieces come from around Ameca and which do not, and to which period they belong.
I was accompanied on my visit by two such knowledgeable local persons, Francisco Mejía and José Gil, and I suggest you ask for them if you stop to see this museum.
This collection truly has a little bit of everything. There are petroglyphs, conch-shell trumpets, mammoth bones, petrified wood and artifacts from every period. Personally, I found the obsidian displays most interesting. They have a large, very elaborately decorated knife used for ritually removing the heart of a sacrificial victim. There is also the best collection of obsidian cores I’ve ever seen. The core is a specially formed (conical or cylindrical) chunk of obsidian which an ancient craftsman used to tap just so, with a deer horn, to spall off razor-sharp knives and blades of different sizes.
The jewel of the obsidian collection is, for me, an actual piece of jewelry: a pectoralnecklace consisting of a great many small, amazingly thin obsidian disks, each one with a tiny hole in it for stringing. It is said that no artisan in today’s world can make such thin wafers of obsidian, much less perforate them. Even in ancient Mexico, this skill was extremely rare and I understand all known examples of this technique come from the Ahuisculco area. The only other museum around with another such necklace, featuring tiny, ultra-thin human figures of obsidian, is in Tala and definitely worth visiting.
This museum also has a collection of very small ceramic containers which look a bit like shot glasses for tequila, but in reality are for receiving a small amount of human blood dripping from some pierced organ (I won’t go in which one!). The little cup is thrown into a river, a field, a canyon or whatever at the end of the ceremony ... and then there are the long, long necklaces made of hundreds of tiny bones. Better go take a look!
Yes, you will surely find something interesting in this museum and another nice thing about it is the schedule: it’s open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and, believe it or not, does not close for lunch or siesta. On Saturday, the place closes at 1 p.m. and, curiously, it’s not open at all on Sundays. As for cleanliness, the place is a bit dusty, the toilets are a bit dirty and forget about paper or soap. There is, however, plenty of water!
How to get there
From Guadalajara, take Highway 15 toward Nogales and follow the signs for Ameca. Just before reaching Ameca, you will come to a highway heading for Ahualulco. Turn right here (N20.53505 W104.01818) and drive north 3.1 kilometers to a spot (N20.55999 W104.02868) where the old railroad track used to cross the highway (now replaced by a pink ribbon of concrete, the Via Verde). Drive across the old track and turn left onto a road going west. Drive 556 meters. Here the road jogs slightly to the right. Make this jog and keep going west another 1.3 kilometers. Immediately after you pass the old train station, turn left (at N20.55813 W104.04657) and drive through what looks like a parking area. Now you come to Calle Ramón Corona. Drive south on Ramón Corona two blocks (250 meters) to Calle Alameda. Turn left (east) here and on your right, in the middle of the block, you will see the entrance to the grand old Hospital Hilarión Romero, now home to the Ameca Museum (N20.55474 W104.04636). Driving time from Guadalajara is about one hour.