The Shanghai Museum announced the opening of ticket sales for its upcoming exhibition on May 8, On Top of the World Tree: Ancient Civilizations of the Americas, which will be the world's largest showcase of ancient American civilizations.

The museum launched sales of 200,000 early-bird tickets through its official WeChat platform and the travel service Trip.com on the same day. More than 10,000 tickets were sold in 40 minutes, breaking the presale record for the massively successful Egyptian exhibition hosted by the museum last year.

Scheduled to run at the Shanghai Museum on People's Square from July 9 to Nov 14, 2027, the Americas exhibition will display nearly 3,000 artifacts from Mexico and Peru. According to Chu Xiaobo, director of the Shanghai Museum, it will be one of "the world's largest, most authoritative, most comprehensively narrated, and latest presentations of ancient American civilizations".

At the global launch on May 8, Chu, wearing a shirt specially designed for the exhibition featuring signature plants and animals of the Americas, described it as "a once-in-a-lifetime experience".

The exhibition is the sixth installment of the Shanghai Museum's A Dialogue with the World Exhibition series. Last year, the fifth event, On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt, attracted more than 2.77 million visitors and generated over 30 billion online views, setting a new record for the highest attendance at a single paid exhibition in museums worldwide.

More than 70 percent of the visitors were from overseas and other parts of China outside Shanghai. The exhibition generated revenue of more than 760 million yuan ($111.9 million).

Following the great success of the Egyptian exhibition, the Shanghai Museum has collaborated with leading archaeological institutions in Mexico and Peru, as well as top Chinese scholars, to create a panoramic presentation of ancient American civilizations, including the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca.

The museum will dedicate all its galleries at its People's Square venue to the exhibition. Spanning over 7,000 square meters, the exhibition will be designed in two parts.

Galleries on the first and second floors will be jointly presented by the Shanghai Museum, and the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia and the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico. Showcasing more than 2,600 cultural relics from 13 Mexican institutions, this part will highlight the distinct pantheon system and power structures of major Mesoamerican civilizations, focusing on their complex spiritual beliefs and material achievements.

The third-floor, jointly organized with Peru's Larco Museum and NEON Group, which specializes in experimental and large-scale immersive experiences, will feature 325 treasured artifacts from Peru, 116 of which will make their overseas debut. This will be the largest showcase of the Andean civilization in China and one of the most extensive international displays of Andean gold and silver artifacts ever presented by Peru.

One of the largest exhibits will be the Olmec Colossal Stone Head 4 from the Museo de Antropologia de Xalapa, Mexico. Weighing approximately 4.5 tons, it symbolizes the power of the Olmecs, one of the earliest known civilizations of the Americas.

The tallest exhibit will be Calakmul Stela 51 from the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. One of the most outstanding portrait works of Mayan art, it depicts Yuknoom Took' K'awiil, the great ruler of the Kaan kingdom based in Calakmul. Due to its 4-meter height, the Shanghai Museum will construct a specially designed, climate-controlled glass case and display it outdoors on People's Square.

To ensure the safe and timely transportation of these artifacts, the Shanghai Museum will charter two large cargo aircraft from China Eastern Airlines. The planes, adorned with motifs inspired by the patterns of ancient Mexican ruins and depicting the Feathered Serpent, will travel nearly 30,000 kilometers round-trip to deliver the cultural relics to Shanghai.

Beyond common labels of "mysterious" and "primitive", the Americas possess a complete and profound civilizational system, Chu says. Moreover, there are deep archaeological and cultural connections between it and Asia. To highlight these links, the museum will also display selected Chinese cultural relics on loan from domestic institutions from seven provinces.

According to David Gamarra, consul general of Peru in Shanghai, most of the cultural relics in the exhibition are making their China debut. These artifacts vividly illustrate the artistic style and spiritual life of Andean civilizations, reflecting the exquisite artistry and highly developed culture of ancient Peru.

Gamarra says the exhibition will further strengthen cultural exchange between Peru and China; and hopes it will attract more Chinese tourists to visit the country.

Rodrigo Topete Maza, acting consul general of Mexico in Shanghai, notes the profound friendship and long histories shared by China and Mexico. He hopes that through the exhibition, visitors will sense the deep connections between the two nations and the shared spiritual core of their civilizations.

Zhong Xiaomin, director of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, said at the global launch: "We want to take this exhibition as an opportunity to further build a platform for cultural exchange between China and Latin America and introduce more high-quality Latin American cultural resources to China."