Mexico

A large pressure-flaked obsidian blade from the Mexica (Aztec) tradition, Central Mexico, 13th–16th century CE — among the most technically demanding stone tools ever produced, with an edge sharper than modern surgical steel.

A Maya ceramic whistling vessel from the Early Classic period, 400–500 CE, producing a resonant tone when liquid is poured — used in ritual contexts to call upon spirits and deities. One of the most ingenious forms of pre-Columbian ceramic art.

At its peak, Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities on Earth, built on an island in Lake Texcoco and home to over 200,000 people in a civilisation of extraordinary complexity.

The Maya civilisation of Mesoamerica developed one of the most sophisticated writing systems in the ancient world, an astonishingly accurate astronomical calendar, and cities that endured for over two thousand years.