Museum for National Identity
Honduran history from geology to the present in the restored Palace of the Ministries, with a virtual Copán.
The museum occupies a two-storey building in the old centre of Tegucigalpa that was completed in 1880 under President Marco Aurelio Soto and first used as the city's general hospital. A second floor was added in 1933 during the government of Tiburcio Carías Andino, after which the building housed ministries and became known as the Palacio de los Ministerios. It stood empty for years before a restoration campaign by a private foundation adapted it as a museum, which opened on 19 January 2006.
The permanent display is arranged as four sequences: the geological formation of Honduras, its difficult geography and shifting frontiers, the historical making of the nation from pre-Hispanic times to the twentieth century, and a final room on cultural diversity and migration. The best-known element is the virtual presentation of Copán, which reconstructs the Maya city and its buried Rosalila temple in three dimensions. The museum also mounts temporary exhibitions of Honduran art and runs an education programme for schools.
Highlights
- Housed in the 1880 Palace of the Ministries, restored and opened in 2006
- Four permanent galleries tracing Honduras from geology to the present
- Virtual Copán, a three-dimensional reconstruction of the Maya city
- Temporary exhibitions of Honduran art in the upper rooms
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