You don’t have to spend much time in central Mexico or Oaxaca to realize this country has a strange relationship with death.

In the city of Aguascalientes you can visit the Museo Nacional de la Muerte, the national museum of death. It costs all of 10 pesos—less than a buck—and is a great display of the subject in sculpture, painting, paper mache, wood carvings, and more. There’s even a mysterious crystal skull.

It’s a playful place though, with most of the skeletons wearing a smile. The whole place seems to be suppressing a giggle actually. You can get the general slant looking at the photos here, including a skeleton couple in bed still enjoying foreplay. Because they were horizontal, I left out a skeleton priest and alter boy and the one of a baby sleeping on a skull. Ahhh good fun.

There are signs and video monitors showing explanations in Spanish (there are not many English-speaking tourists in this area), but you can tell from the displays in the museum that Mexico’s relationship with death is not a new development. Maya and Aztec artifacts show moving skeletons. Day of the Dead posters go back to the 1800s and there are stamps and lottery tickets depicting the holiday’s mascot Catarina.

The museum—part of the local university—is housed in a historic building with a nice courtyard. A courtyard filled with crazy dead people! I wouldn’t want to be hanging around there at night…

Related posts:

1. Zacatecas: Just another incredible Mexican city with almost no foreign tourists
2. Casanova’s Venice, a Skyscraper Companion, and a New Name for Death Valley
3. My Year of Trying to Not Suck at Spanish