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Across the plaza north of the cathedral, the Museo Regional (Tues-Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 9am-3pm; US$2.50, free Tues & Sun) is housed in an eighteenth-century colonial mansion - originally a religious seminary, later a barracks and then a school. It's a supremely elegant setting for an extensive and diverse collection. Downstairs, exhibits start with a section devoted to regional archeology - from stone tools and the skeleton of a mammoth through to the finest achievements of western Mexican cultures in pottery and metal-working. The peoples of the west developed quite separately from those in southern and central Mexico, and there is considerable evidence that they had more contact with South and Central American cultures than with those who would now be regarded as their compatriots. The deep shaft tombs displayed here are unique in Mexico, but were common down the west coast in Peru and Ecuador. Later the Tarascan kingdom, based around Patzcuaro, came almost to rival the strength of the Aztecs - partly due to their more extensive knowledge and use of metals. Certainly the Aztecs tried, and failed, to extend their influence over Tarascan territory, though following Cortes' destruction of Tenochtitlan, the Tarascans submitted relatively peacefully to the conquistadors. Upstairs, along with rooms devoted to the state's modern history and ethnography, is a sizeable gallery of colonial and modern art. Most remarkable here is the large collection of nineteenth-century portraiture , a local tradition that captures relatively ordinary Mexicans in a charmingly naive style - nowadays they'd be snapshots for the family album, and indeed many have the imposed formality familiar from early photography.
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