In the mid-twentieth century, both unknown monuments and known monuments that had been recorded and published as coming from archaeological sites in countries such as Guatemala and Mexico were removed by looters and sold to collectors and museums. In the late 1960s, during the height of the looting and acquisition of Maya stone sculptures, Clemency Coggins (1969:94) denounced museums for buying the monuments despite the fact that they came from known, published sites, as was the case for Piedras Negras.
Even as museums and collectors in the 1960s and early 1970s were eagerly acquiring Maya sculptures, international efforts were underway with aims to control and prevent looting and to lobby for the return of artifacts to their home countries. Outspoken critics came from Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, and Europe. These included Stella Cheesman, Guatemalan consul-general in Houston (Melton 1968a:1); Clemency Coggins (1969, 1971, 1972), an American art historian; Laura de Garda Prendes of the Guatemalan Asociacion Tikal (Meyer 1972:21, 39-40); Ian Graham, founder of the CMHI; Jorge Lujan Munoz (1966, 1985), a Guatemalan historian, lawyer, and ambassador in Spain; Karl Herbert Mayer (1978, 1980, 1984, 1987, 1995), an Austrian scholar; Karl Ernest Meyer (1972, 1973), an American journalist; Merle Greene Robertson (1972), an American artist; and Alberto Ruz Lhuillier, a Mexican archaeologist (Meyer 1972:7-8), among others. A number of journalists from the New York Times, including Tad Szulc (1970), John Sibley (1972),
And Robert Reinhold (1973), also made the depredation known to a wider American public; the coverage in the New York Times was particularly fitting because New York City collections held at least two Piedras Negras sculptures.
The sculptures purchased in the 1960s and early 1970s were imported before the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and before the United States and European countries had accepted the convention. Guatemala and Mexico already had laws, however, that prohibited the change of location of archaeological and historical objects and monuments without the express authorization of their governments. Jorge Lujan Munoz (1966:20) affirmed that a law of 24 April 1931 declared Piedras Negras a Guatemalan “national monument” and that additional legislation from 1936 and 1947 had been designed to protect the sculptures.27 Regarding Mexico, James Nafziger (1975:71) stated that Mexican law from 1934 “had established national ownership of all immovable archaeological material in the public domain, and precluded the export of all works of art or antiquities without an export license” Yet for decades, the laws were not sufficiently enforced, and dealers, museums, and collectors willfully turned a blind eye toward those countries’ laws (see Melton 1968c:19).
In the end, the level of destruction wrought on the sculptures was one of the catalysts for major changes to United States antiquities laws in the 1970s. Responding to the complete ravaging of this archaeological site and others, the critics mentioned above worked tirelessly in collaboration with scholars, journalists, lawmakers, and other activists in several countries to raise awareness about looting and insist on legislative reforms. Although the changes would be too late for Piedras Negras, some change was achieved and has led to the protection of other sites, although looting continues to take place.
The UNESCO General Conference that adopted the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property met in 1970. The convention was entered into force in 1972, but the United States did not accept it until 1983, with Japan’s acceptance in 2002 and Switzerland’s in 2003,28 leaving open years of opportunity for the illicit looting and importation of ancient Maya artifacts in the United States, Asia, and Europe.29 Even after the 1970 UNESCO Convention, Walter Sullivan (1971:8) reported that “its effectiveness is limited; under its terms, an importing country can only confiscate such contraband if the country from which it came is willing to reimburse the ‘innocent’ purchaser” Furthermore, Tad Szulc (1970:5) reported that American officials doubted the treaty would have much efficacy without further measures such as massive border patrols, which were not part of the treaty.
Other attempts to enact legislation to reduce looting was a 1972 United States statute that forbade import into the United States of pre-Columbian monumental or architectural sculpture or murals without a certificate from the country of origin stating that its export did not violate that country’s laws (Honan 1991:16; Sibley 1972:36).30 Nevertheless, although any import seized would be offered to the country of origin, the statute stated that the country of origin “must bear all expenses incurred incident to such return” (Merriman, Elsen, and Urice 2007:322); this was another impediment for developing countries. Moreover, this statute applied only to monumental sculpture and architectural pieces, and Honan (1991:16) cites
Coggins’s observation that the illicit trade then turned to grave goods and smaller pieces such as Maya ceramic vessels, which are now plentiful in many American museums (see also Coggins 1998:54).
Guatemala and the United States enacted additional treaties and restrictions at various times to attempt to reduce the pillaging or recover looted items. The United States and Guatemala signed a bilateral treaty in 1984, for example, in which the United States “agreed to recover and return stolen Guatemalan archaeological and historical cultural property” (Coggins 2007:1). In 1991, responding to a formal request for protection from Guatemala, the United States imposed emergency import restrictions on all Maya archaeological artifacts, particularly from Guatemala’s Department of the Peten, to be enforced by the United States Customs Service (Honan 1991:16).31 Finally, in the last decade, there has been more internal regulation among museums, and the Association of Art Museum Directors has published more stringent guidelines concerning the acquisition of antiquities, including those received as donations.32
Despite these efforts, the depredation has not ceased, and looting-related violence continues to this day in Guatemala and elsewhere. Almost every archaeologist has at least one story—if not many—of finding fresh looters’ pits. And when I visited Dos Pilas in 2008, the site guardians told the story of recently having been overtaken by men with machine guns, who proceeded to cut sections of carved steps and take them out of the site. The guards showed us the freshly sawn blocks and their carved inscriptions, which had been sliced down the middle.
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