Sweet exhibit: Chocolate on display at NC museum

RALEIGH — Who needs a candy story when you can get your fill of chocolate at the Museum.

An exhibit opens Friday at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh titled “Chocolate: The Exhibition.”

The exhibition starts in the rain forest with the cacao tree, whose seeds provide chocolate, then explains what chocolate meant to the ancients Maya civilization nearly 1,500 years ago.

In the 16th century, cacao seeds were so valuable that they were used as money in the Aztec civilization of 16-century Mexico. The exhibition moves through chocolate’s introduction into European society and explains how chocolate became a mass-produced commodity for the world.

The exhibit opens Saturday and continues through Sept. 7. The Field Museum in Chicago developed and housed the exhibit in 2002.

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