Gran Museo del Mundo Maya, Modern museum in Mérida, Mexico

The Gran Museo del Mundo Maya is a museum in Mérida whose oval building is raised on columns and wrapped in a green metal lattice of intersecting struts forming triangles and stars, with white inner struts, meant to represent the foliage of the sacred ceiba. A white wall with vertical panels and the raised inscription "GRAN MUSEO DEL MUNDO MAYA" stands below the canopy. Inside are four permanent halls and two temporary ones, with around 800 archaeological pieces from the Palacio Cantón.

The museum was inaugurated twice: first on 24 September 2012 by President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and Governor Ivonne Ortega Pacheco, with symbolic Maya rituals, then again on 21 December 2012 by President Enrique Peña Nieto and Governor Rolando Zapata Bello, the date closing the Maya long count. It was built under the Mundo Maya tourism programme on the site of the former Cordemex industrial complex.

The building takes the form of a ceiba, the tree that Maya cosmology places between the underworld, the earth and the sky; a spiral stair inside stands for its trunk. A 3-metre monument beside the museum honours Yuri Knorozov, the scholar who deciphered Maya writing, and bears his words: "Corazón, siempre me quedo mexicano." Labels are in Maya, Spanish and English.

The museum has a dedicated children's area and offers multiple terraces and gardens for visitors to explore. Plan to spend several hours to see the exhibitions across all four halls and take advantage of the outdoor spaces.

The museum's four permanent halls are arranged in reverse chronological order: El Mayab, Naturaleza y Cultura; Mayas de Hoy; Mayas de Ayer; and Mayas Ancestrales. A 3-metre monument to Yuri Knorozov, who deciphered Maya script, stands beside the building; sculptor Reynaldo Bolio Suárez (Pachelli) made it, and it was installed on 11 March 2018.