One Institute, Many Sites and Collections

The Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia was founded in 1939 to consolidate Mexico's archaeological, anthropological and historical heritage functions under a single federal body, replacing a more fragmented earlier arrangement of separate departments and academic societies. Rather than operating a single flagship museum, INAH oversees a national network of museums and archaeological zones, which is why the three objects grouped under its custodianship in this atlas were acquired through entirely different routes and are displayed at different sites: the Aztec Sun Stone at the National Museum of Anthropology, unearthed during colonial-era construction work in Mexico City's main square in 1790, long before INAH existed to receive it; and the Coyolxauhqui Stone at the Templo Mayor site museum, found only in 1978 when electrical utility workers accidentally struck it during excavation for underground cables.

This structure means INAH functions less like a single collecting institution with one acquisitions history and more like a national regulatory and curatorial authority that absorbed pre-existing finds and continues to receive new ones as excavation continues across the country. Its authority extends beyond display to authentication, which is why INAH's own institutional judgment features directly in disputes over other Mexican antiquities, including manuscripts whose authenticity institute researchers have been asked to assess.