Maya Stela Fragment Returned	September 3, 1999

Stela fragment looted from the Late Classic Maya site of El Perú (Photo courtesy Herrick Feinstein; map by Lynda D'Amico.) [LARGER IMAGE] [LARGER IMAGE]

The center section of an intricately carved limestone stela taken from the Late Classic (A.D. 600-900) Maya site of El Perú has been returned to the government of Guatemala. Looted from the Petén site sometime in the late 1960s, the monument fragment bears the mask of a deity, possibly the Maya sun god, beneath which is depicted the head of an enemy. According to Ian Graham of Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, who noted the missing section of the stela when he mapped the heavily pillaged site in 1971, the fragment once formed part of a belt worn by the Maya ruler carved on the stone pillar. Other monuments stolen from the site at approximately the same time include stelae in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (now known as stelae 33 and 34); a side panel from stela 33, which was sold as a separate artifact; and possibly an altar now in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art.

The fragment was brought to Graham's attention shortly before it was to be auctioned at Sotheby's last fall. Sources tell ARCHAEOLOGY that Sotheby's experts suspected the stela fragment was hot and suggested to the owner that they return it as a gesture of good will rather than risk confiscation of the artifact and legal difficulties. The owner agreed, and the stela fragment's return was arranged by the law firm of Herrick Feinstein, which is representing Guatemala in its effort to recover stolen artifacts.

See also "The Search for Site Q" and "Plundering the Petén," September/October 1997.

© 1999 by the Archaeological Institute of America archive.archaeology.org/online/news/stela.html