Santo Domingo Cultural Center and Regional Museum
Alcalá Street, Oaxaca City
 Next
to the Temple
of Santo Domingo on the corner of Alcalá and Cinco de Mayo lies
the Ex-Convent, now home to the Centro Cultural Santo Domingo housing
the Regional Museum.
The massive structure of this 16th C. convent is flanked
by the Temple of Santo Domingo, the entrance plaza and an extensive
desert botanical garden presently under construction.
Long hallways, some stark and shiny with centuries
of thick white paint, others decorated by frescos and other ornamentation,
lead the visitor past cell after cell converted into display rooms
for an enormous collection of pre-columbian and colonial artifacts
from the area, as well as exhibits of popular indigenous culture.
In each room are computer display screens, rather
than guides, that walk you through each exhibit, providing additional
information.
From a number of vantage points along the hallways
one can look out onto the botanical gardens replete with cacti and
desert succulents, across to the domes and steeples of the Church
or down into the wide, stone and column-lined courtyards of the
Convent.
One of the most interesting displays within the Regional Museum
is that of the treasures of Monte Alban's Tomb 7, discovered
by arqueologist Alfonso Caso, which includes a rich collection of
jewellry, crystal, bone and clay artifacts.
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