PHOENIX — Dead men may tell no tales, but death itself is another story. In Aguascalientes, Mexico, the subject fills an entire museum.

The National Museum of Death, founded two years ago in this central Mexican city, explores the country’s macabre interest in kicking the bucket, from the mass human sacrifices of the Aztecs to modern Day of the Dead celebrations, which begin Sunday.

In its galleries, human skulls encrusted with turquoise grimace at visitors. Tiny skeletons gather around miniature banquet tables, toasting their own demise. The Grim Reaper glares across a room at a case full of bloody crucifixes.

"Mexicans have death imprinted all over their art and culture," Director Jose Antonio Padilla said. "So, why not a museum about it?"

It all came about because a Mexican art collector had a lot of skeletons in his closet: dozens of tiny calaveritas, or skeleton dioramas, along with hundreds of other death-related artworks he had acquired over 50 years.

The owner, Octavio Bajonero Gil, was looking for a museum to take his collection. At the same time, the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, a state college, was looking to found an art museum and wanted something different, Padilla said.

Both sides were thrilled to death to have found each other, and in June 2007, the museum, with Bajonero’s donation as its core collection, opened in two buildings owned by the university in downtown Aguascalientes. Admission is 20 pesos, or $1.53.

Reaction to the museum among Mexicans has been mixed, Padilla said, partly because the country is grappling with a wave of drug-trafficking murders.

"People from (border cities in) the north say, ’Why do you want to celebrate something that I’m trying to avoid every day?’ " Padilla said. "But this is not a museum of drug violence. It’s a museum about a certain artistic tradition."

Among foreigners, however, the museum has been a big hit. About one-third of its 70,000 annual visitors are from other countries, mainly the United States, Padilla said.

"It’s definitely kind of bizarre," said Spencer Garcia-Stinson, 24, of Gilford, N.H. "In the United States, we don’t like to talk about death. But here, they’re dealing with it so openly ... It’s amazing."

This is peak season for the museum because of the Nov. 1-2 Day of the Dead celebrations, when Mexicans honor their ancestors and recently deceased relatives.

The fascination with death has its roots in pre-Hispanic religions, Padilla said. Mayans, Aztecs and other cultures regarded death as an important step between life and reincarnation. The souls of one’s ancestors were constant, invisible companions.

In one gallery, pre-Columbian sculptures show people cavorting with skeletons representing the souls of the dead. Others depict human sacrifices, or the god Xolotl, who guides souls to Mictlan, the Aztec underworld. The collection includes statues of "Saint Death," a grim reaper, which is increasingly worshiped at shrines and chapels in poor neighborhoods of Mexico.

Some museumgoers have tried to leave offerings for the grim-reaper statues, said Juan Manuel Vizcaino, assistant director of exhibits.

"We get some unusual people here," Vizcaino said. "Sometimes, we have to remind them that it’s a museum, not a place of worship."