What I struck me with this article was the statement that there are 4,000 undiscovered sites still to be explored.....also the looting, could it be some of the looting was just the Mayan's taking things with them when they left? Or, are they still here, but lurking beneath the earth......Leslee
Looting a lost civilization Maya scholars in race with thieves
Jeremy McDermott, Chronicle Foreign Service Thursday, June 7, 2001
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/07/MN221710.DTL
Las Milpas, Belize -- It looked like an odd-shaped hill in the jungle, until the looters' tunnels came into view. At the end of the biggest tunnel there was a hollow chamber, the ceiling burnt black by the thieves' fiery torches, in what was once a Maya pyramid.
This is Las Milpas, a ninth century Maya ceremonial center of 11 plazas and about 50 structures that was long ago reclaimed by the jungle. The archaeologists were beaten to the site by fortune hunters, who probably found the skeleton of a Maya king or priest decked out in jade jewelry, with pots and bowls laid out beside him. The bowls would have been painted with hieroglyphics intended to remind the spirit of the dead what he had done in his life and provide him with directions to the afterlife.
These days, more and more tourists from the United States and Europe are visiting Maya cities that have been excavated and restored: Chichen Itza and Palenque in Mexico, Tikal in Guatemala and Copan in Honduras.
But as the international appetite for Maya culture grows, so has the hunger for illegal artifacts. In fact, researchers are involved in a race against time with increasingly tenacious looters.
In the past two decades, scholars have cracked the complex hieroglyphic code of the Maya, shedding light on an advanced civilization whose astrologers and mathematicians used the zero before their European counterparts.
The Maya disappeared in the 11th century and scholars are uncertain why, offering a range of theories, including drought, war and disease. But with so much looting going on, the cause of the Maya civilization's demise may never be revealed.
In Belize and Guatemala, scientists are hoping to reach huge ruins that have been largely unexplored. Satellite images show that the region could have 4,000 undiscovered sites.
On both sides of the border, looting has become a lucrative illegal trade, second only to drugs. In 1997, Richard D. Hansen, a University of California at Los Angeles archaeologist who has been documenting looting in Guatemala estimated the annual trade at $120 million. The problem is compounded by the extreme poverty of the majority of the population of Guatemala, especially in the Peten region, where Maya sites are concentrated.
Treasure hunters typically covet jade jewelry, inscribed pottery, sacrificial altars and stelae -- man-sized stone slabs, carved with images of kings and their achievements.
"Just to give you an idea of what Maya artifacts are worth, there was a Sotheby's (London auction house) sale in 1990, where a common polychrome vase went for $5,000, a jade necklace for $13,000 and a pair of zoomorphs (limestone carvings of deities in animal form) for $230,000," said George Thompson, the commissioner of the Belize government's Department of Archaeology. "Now, the prices are much higher."
Thompson says a large portion of stolen artifacts make their way to the United States and Europe via Cancun, a Mexican resort city. The smuggling occurs even though importation of looted treasures into the United States is prohibited under a 1983 federal law that obligates the U.S. government to observe a UNESCO convention. A little-known State Department agency -- the Cultural Property Advisory Committee -- is
supposed to keep Americans from buying antiquities.
Since Guatemala is a major transshipment point for Colombian cocaine and heroin, the same criminal drug organizations have moved into the business of looting Maya treasure, observers say.
"There is a relationship between smuggling (artifacts) and narcotics trafficking," said former Guatemalan Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Juan de Dios Estrada.
The entry of organized crime has increased the violence associated withsmuggling. Last year, 14 artifacts were stolen from a museum at the Maya city of Cahal Pech in Belize. Arrests were made and half of the stolen pieces were recovered due to information given by a museum employee. The day before the man was scheduled to testify in court, he was assassinated.
In Belize, a tiny nation with few resources, the police rely on archaeologists to investigate such theft. Guatemala, on the other hand, has a special police investigation unit.
Inspector Victor Manuel Salazar, who heads the Police Patrimonial and Environmental Department, concedes that his 17 agents have made little headway -- they arrested only one suspect last year. Salazar says smugglers are not only well-organized and well-armed, but enjoy protection from powerful politicians and ex-military officers.
"There have been cases that we have been told to drop," said Salazar from his tiny downtown office in Guatemala City. "So our arrest record is not good."
Four years ago, former Gen. Cesar Augusto Garcia was fired as Guatemala's vice minister of defense after being accused of being part of a smuggling ring allegedly headed by Alfredo Moreno, an ex-military intelligence officer. Sixteen other officials, including three colonels, police officers and customs officials were also dismissed.
Some former leftist guerrillas are also looters, according to archaeologists and Belizean military sources. Although Guatemala's bloody 36- year civil war ended in 1996, some armed rebels have found few ways of earning a living, they say.
Valentino Castillo has tended to the ruins at Caracol, a Maya site in Belize, for more than 30 years. Two years ago, he saw seven looters armed with AK-47 assault rifles and wearing guerrilla uniforms.
"I climbed a tree, because there was no way I was going to challenge those men," said the elderly worker as he wrung his gnarled hands.
Castillo also complained about those he calls "legal looters" -- foreign archaeologists. He says they are supposed to turn over everything they find to the nation's Archaeological Commission, but when a tomb is found they sometimes send workers away.
"But I used to sneak back at night, and the stuff I saw was never handed over or cataloged," said Castillo.
At the very least, foreign scientists have helped create future looters by hiring laborers to help them with the excavations, said Thompson.
"These guys (laborers) know where to look. They know the astrological alignments the Maya used when laying out their buildings, so they know where to dig the trenches," said Thompson. "These teams can loot a building in a couple of days with just picks, shovels and candles."
···
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.256 / Virus Database: 129 - Release Date: 5/31/01