Mexico exhibition in Paris breaks museum record

(AFP PHOTO FRED DUFOUR)

The biggest exhibition held of treasures from ancient Mexico's mysterious City of Gods, Teotihuacan, wound up this week breaking visitor records for the Paris museum that hosted it.

The Quai Branly museum said 235,000 people had seen the show of 450 pre-Columbian pieces, including feathered serpents and sacred jaguars left from the 800-year history of the city which mysteriously fell around 700 AD.

"This is the highest visitor attendance for a temporary exhibition since the museum opened in June 2006," said the museum, the French capital's newest arthouse.

Miguel Baez of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said when the show opened in October that it was biggest exhibition ever on Teotihuacan.