The changes to monuments described in this chapter are iterations of these objects’ life histories and cultural biographies, which began at the moment they were created and continue as the objects endure through time. Although most of this book investigates the life histories of Maya monuments in the ancient past, their life histories and cultural biographies also include the modern period, although this may be categorically and qualitatively different from earlier periods. Indeed, objects’ life histories and cultural biographies involve objects in motion. These stories are narratives of things persisting through time and coming into contact with different “interpretive communities” that may engage with the things, even if in a manner entirely different from those of earlier communities (see R. Davis 1997:8).50
In pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, objects were traded and otherwise moved and modified. People in ancient Costa Rica, for example, acquired and cut up Early Classic Maya greenstone celts, dividing their images and hieroglyphic texts and reusing them in ways that the Maya did not intend (M. Graham 1992:191). In addition, as mentioned earlier, ancient Maya warriors destroyed sculptures of other polities (see Houston 2004:276; Martin 2000b; M. Miller and O’Neil 2004; Sharer 2004:305-16; Stuart 1998b).
These transformations are part of the objects’ life histories or cultural biographies, even when they take place in a different culture, do not respect the object’s original form or meaning, or destroy them. Indeed, all reuses—however objectionable—must be acknowledged as parts of the objects’ long-term existence. Modern transformations of ancient sculptures, therefore, may be considered as part of a continuum with those in the ancient past. We may understand the transfer of these monuments to private collections and museums as other moments of interaction, in which new interpretive communities engage with and newly perceive the objects.
At the same time, the episodes of looting, fragmentation, and displacement clearly produced significant ruptures in the material and conceptual makeup of these things
And altered their physical forms and contexts in a manner that was categorically different from the interactions in the ancient past. I concede that my analyses are colored by my judgment of the morality and ethics of looting practices. But if I am to judge, and if I am disturbed by the destruction of these objects, I ask if twentieth-century fragmentation by looters is any different from ninth-century fragmentation by Yaxchilan warriors, as happened with Piedras Negras Stelae 12 and 15, Panel 3, and Throne 1. In a way, the answer is no. Yet I am fascinated by the acts of ninth-century Yaxchilan warriors but outraged by the acts of twentieth-century looters. Nevertheless, both groups destroyed the sculptures, and both committed acts of violence.
In these acts of destruction, both groups reified the power these objects have over people. Looters and their accomplices took great risks in extracting these things, collectors paid exorbitant amounts of money to purchase them, and people such as Ian Graham and his companions risked their lives to document and protect them. All of these actions, regardless of their motivation, constitute intense engagements with things.
But still unaddressed is the question about the state of these objects once they were fragmented and displaced in the twentieth century. If all of these transformations are part of a continuum of use and reuse, can we say that any of them qualitatively change the object? What happens to these monuments when they are divorced from their original contexts? What happens when they enter modern institutions such as museum galleries?
A number of authors have commented on the transformations that take place when religious objects are reconceptualized as art or placed in museums. Alfred Gell (1998:97), for example, writes that the reclassification of “idols” as art neutralizes them. Another common argument is that objects “die” in museums. David Carrier, for example, cites a range of theorists from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries who have claimed that objects in museums are dead (Carrier 2006:51-59). Moreover, museums’ encouragement of passive viewing and the flattening out of objects’ ancient and modern histories contribute to their apparent loss of life, spirit, and affective power.
But new interactions can and do take place with these objects, whether in museums or elsewhere, whether they are transformed into commodities, works of art, or objects of analysis. Regarding his approach to following objects through time and in different interpretive communities, Davis argues that “different ways of seeing animate the objects seen in new ways” (R. Davis 1997:9). Can interactions with Maya sculptures in private collections or museums animate these sculptures again? Perhaps, for although they may be “neutralized” or even “dead,” they still hold power and incite emotion and response, whether of admiration, fascination, curiosity, awe, respect, or disgust.
Furthermore, they still may bear or convey agency and meaning imbued in them by their makers and those who interacted with them from the moment of their creation and beyond. This includes the agency of patrons and sculptors in the making of the object, of worshipers making burning offerings in front of a monument, of ancient marauders or modern looters transforming the physical thing, and of modern scholars adding stories and interpretations about the object and its ancient communities. All of these engagements and social relations are folded into the life
History and agency of these things and may inhere both in their materiality and in the stories that accrue around them.
In the end, I support continued efforts to stop looting, assist countries with repatriation claims when desired, and negotiate new agreements, collaborations, and exchange of objects as loans among countries. Whether the objects from Piedras Negras and elsewhere stay in their current locations in museums or are repatriated to their home countries, I advocate for the telling of their stories and for considering all interactions and transformations as essential parts of these objects’ life histories. Indeed, in addition to considering how people interacted with them in the ancient past, we need to continue to study the systems by which they were looted, as well.
These practices are part of the social, cultural, economic, and intellectual histories of Guatemala, the United States, and other countries. The stories, social systems, international interactions, and ways of knowing and seeing are worthy of study on their own terms. For example, future studies could examine the different techniques that looters used to destroy these monuments. Alternatively, they could explore the social, cultural, and economic composition and implications of the looting, distribution, and acquisition networks in Guatemala and Mexico, as well as in the United States, Asia, and Europe.51
By studying those systems and ways of seeing and knowing, we may shed light on the histories of both the objects and the people who engaged with them. But through such study, we also may learn about our present, both regarding how the very same antiquities trade continues to destroy the world’s cultural heritage and how antiquities trade networks—both in the 1960s and today—are connected to narcotics trade networks that are currently paralyzing Mexico and sacrificing countless human lives (see also Crossley 1984; Dorfman 1998:29).
As part of the telling of these stories, these sculptures should be displayed, and the indices of their twentieth - and twenty-first-century treatment should not be obfuscated or downplayed. Of the Piedras Negras stelae that were looted and sold in the international art market, three—Stelae 3, 7, and 25—have been returned to Guatemala, though these are only fragments of the original monuments, and they are in storage at the MUNAE and currently not on display. In contrast, the MUNAE does display monuments from El Zotz, Naranjo, and elsewhere that were looted but later repatriated.
The rest of the Piedras Negras monuments are in museums, art galleries, and private collections. Yet even in the museums, only two (Stelae 5 and 11) are currently on public exhibition. Others are relegated to basements, whether because the museums are under renovation or have no room to display the monuments or because the monuments are fragmented or in poor condition.52 In fact, Alan Shestack, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from 1985 to 1987, expressed embarrassment over the museum’s ownership of the “brutalized” Piedras Negras Stela 2.53 He wrote, “The object was obviously mutilated in the process of being removed from its original site. It is in wretched condition now, hardly enjoyable to look at; I can hardly imagine why my predecessors here wanted it, given its state at the time. And there it sits. I think if the Guatemalan government wanted it back, I would be only too happy to give it back. But I cannot imagine why they would, in fact, want it now (Shestack [1989] 1999:95).” The stela remains in the Minneapolis collection but currently is not exhibited.
The opportunities to interact with these sculptures are thereby being denied to all but a few people. These objects should be displayed again, along with photographs of their original forms and stories of the ancient and modern life histories of the physical things, such that neither these monuments nor the human interactions with them, whether from the eighth century or the twentieth century, are lost. Furthermore, their display will allow people to see and interact with them and animate them in new ways.
Finally, although these objects have been transformed, we may continue to analyze them and try to understand why the ancient Maya made them, how they perceived them, and how they used them. For in trying to recreate the lived experiences of people in relation to sculptures and capture a glimpse into ancient intentions and experiences of these objects, however elusive these endeavors may be, we may bring these objects to life in new ways. Moreover, by revealing and acknowledging the fundamental power they held more than a millennium ago and allowing our own ways of seeing and knowing to be expanded by the histories of interactions with these sculptures, the increased knowledge of ancient experiences may affect our own.
In Time and the Highland Maya, Barbara Tedlock describes the K’iche’ Maya conceptualization of the passage of time as an “accumulation” or “piling on” of time analogous to the accumulation of duties and titles by religious and political leaders in Momostenango, Guatemala, which “do not so much change as accumulate” (Tedlock [1982] 1993:202). In an analogous fashion, the life histories of the Piedras Negras monuments are piled onto them as they accrue meaning, accumulate histories, and bear indices of rites and relations enacted at the moment of their creation and afterward. These life histories inhere within and accrue around the objects’ very materiality and the memory of those life histories, with each interaction and story piling on and affecting the object, which itself becomes saturated with memory.
World History
