Once the looted monuments from Piedras Negras began to turn up in collections outside Guatemala, authorities and individuals from Guatemala and the United States began to press for their return. In some cases, the repatriation was quick and straightforward. For example, in 1969, a portion of Stela 7 was exhibited at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico as the “piece of the month” (INAH 1969:56-57, Foto 32). It was erroneously identified as having come from Campeche. However, as soon as it was revealed to be a Piedras Negras monument, the Mexican government returned it to Guatemala (L. Lujan Munoz 1969:7; Mayer 1984:6; Stuart and Graham 2003:40). Luis Lujan Munoz (1969:7) said it was returned “ante una gestion amistosa.”33 It remains in Guatemala’s MUNAE collection (fig. E.3).
In other cases, the returns involved years of battles. Jorge Lujan Munoz (1966, 1985) attempted to use legal and diplomatic channels and public denouncement to press for the return of several monuments. However, Guatemala had little or no legal recourse to have the objects returned because individuals and institutions in the United States and other countries would not abide by the laws of the source countries. Nevertheless, some museums responded to political pressure. In 1966, J. Lujan Munoz published a scathing rebuke of the destruction and smuggling of Piedras Negras Stelae 3 and 5 and their display in New York City museums. Citing Guatemalan legislation from 1931—declaring Piedras Negras a Guatemalan national monument—and additional legislation from 1936 and 1947, J. Lujan Munoz (1966:20) claimed that the stelae were Guatemalan property and should be returned to Guatemala.
Graham (2010:431-32) writes that as soon as the Brooklyn Museum learned of the identity of the Piedras Negras fragments they had purchased, “the museum very
Properly yielded title to the Guatemalan government.” However, the museum in reality resisted for a number of years, during which the Guatemalan embassy and the director of Guatemala’s Instituto de Antropologla e Historia de Guatemala (IDAEH) exerted sustained pressure on the museum through the U. S. State Department and by way of direct communication with museum staff.
These efforts are evident in a series of letters, beginning in May 1966, that the State Department sent to the Brooklyn Museum.34 Acting on a diplomatic note from the Embassy of Guatemala in Washington, the letter stated that the Stela 3 fragments were “apparently removed from their original place without permission,” and Guatemala expressed its desire to recover them. The fragments were described as “irreplaceable objects, archeological treasures of incomparable value, and hence, part of the historical and artistic heritage of Guatemala.”35
An aide-memoire sent by the Guatemalan embassy to the Brooklyn Museum claimed that the stela fragments were “part of the cultural treasure of the nation.” It also cited Legislative Decree 425 of 1947, which prohibited the destruction, alteration, or change of location of archaeological, historic, and artistic monuments, including stelae, and classified their illegal exportation “as a crime.”36
However, the Brooklyn Museum claimed legal title to the fragments. They affirmed they had purchased the fragments from Robert Huber and “had no knowledge about the apparent improper removal of the pieces from Guatemala.”37 The museum’s lawyers, the firm Davidson, Dawson and Clark, Counsellors at Law, supported them in this claim. Writing to Thomas F. Killoran of the State Department, the lawyers asserted that the Brooklyn Museum “purchased the fragments of Stela 3 from a reputable source in good faith for value and without notice of any defect in title. Accordingly, in our opinion the Museum’s title to the fragments cannot be questioned under any rule of law of which we are aware.”38
They also mentioned that the museum had purchased the fragments with funds from the public trust. Acting curator Elizabeth Easby stated in a letter to Carlos Samayoa Chinchilla, director of IDAEH, that they could not “give them away” because the museum’s charter as a public institution required that they “legally dispose of objects purchased with trust funds only by sale or exchange.” She suggested that the museum could return the stela only “by means of an exchange or reciprocal loan of an object or objects of equivalent value.”39 However, Samayoa Chinchilla replied that Guatemala could not pay the museum for the stela fragments. He proposed that the stela could remain in Brooklyn under the terms of a ten-year loan; after expiration of the loan, the stela would be returned to its legitimate owner, “el pueblo de Guatemala.”40 The museum rejected this proposal and asserted that they could not renounce ownership of the monument.41
At the same time, international scholarly communities pressed the Brooklyn Museum—as well as the Museum of Primitive Art—to return the Piedras Negras stelae to Guatemala. Specifically, in 1968, the 38th International Congress of Americanists adopted a “resolution concerning the thefts and destruction of Maya monuments as well as other important precolumbian sculpture.”42 The resolution specifically recommended that the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Primitive Art, “in the name of scientific ethics and international collaboration, return these important precolumbian monuments to their rightful owner, the Government of Guatemala.”43
Nonetheless, Thomas Buechner, the Brooklyn Museum director, responded that the museum could not return the fragments “without compensatory arrangements”44
In 1970, however, the Brooklyn Museum finally conceded. In a 1972 letter summarizing the series of events and decisions, lawyer Covington Hardee wrote that the museum relented once they learned that Nelson Rockefeller had decided to relinquish ownership of Stela 5 to the Guatemalan government.45 Moreover, in the end, Robert Huber agreed to reimburse the Brooklyn Museum for the purchase of Stela 3; this reimbursement was half in trade and half in cash.46
The Stela 3 fragments were handed over to the Guatemalan government on 5 June 1972 in a ceremony in Brooklyn in which the museum director, Duncan Cameron, released the fragments to the Guatemalan ambassador, Julio Asensio-Wunderlich. The article recounting this transfer cites Satterthwaite’s recognition of the fragments “with dismay. . . as the bones of an old friend” (Knox 1972:48). A draft of the museum’s press release quoted museum director Duncan Cameron, who said that the fragments were being returned because they “constitute part of an historical document more important in the land of its origin than in this country”47 This was meant to contrast explicitly with the idea that they were being returned because they were deemed “stolen property”48
The Stela 3 fragments first were transferred from Brooklyn to the Miami Science Museum (Mayer 1980:11; Stuart and Graham 2003:24). Notably, they had risen dramatically in monetary value from the time Brooklyn had purchased them. Brooklyn purchased the fragments for $3,000 in 1964; however, when transported to Miami from Brooklyn in 1972, they were insured for $120,000 (Lacombe 1976:7). This rise in value may have resulted from the identification of the fragments as coming from Piedras Negras, as well as the notoriety of their involvement in an international scandal.
Stela 3 was sent first to Miami, because the Miami Museum of Science was working to encourage cooperation between American museums and the Guatemalan government to assist in the recovery and conservation of looted Maya monuments. Charles Lacombe, who was affiliated with the Miami Museum of Science, wrote that the “Miami Formula” allowed museums or universities to borrow looted stelae from Guatemala or other source countries if they guaranteed restoration and exhibition of the stelae and acknowledged ownership by the country of origin (Lacombe 1976:7). They transferred the Stela 3 fragments to Miami under this plan and later returned them to Guatemala.
Guatemala later worked for the repatriation of other monuments from Piedras Negras and other sites. In 1985, J. Lujan Munoz again found that monuments had been taken from Guatemala and presented evidence that Piedras Negras Stelae 25 and 35 and Dos Pilas Stela 8 had been taken illegally. In particular, he reported that a fragment of Stela 25 was in the collection of the French art dealers Guy Loudmer and Herve Poulain and was for sale in the Parisian auction house Hotel des Ventes. The starting price was eight to ten thousand francs. J. Lujan Munoz (1985:461, 483) notes that the catalog did not provide a provenance for the piece, although it was clearly from Piedras Negras.
Serving as the Guatemalan ambassador in Spain, J. Lujan Munoz pursued the return of Stela 25 to Guatemala through legal and diplomatic channels. However, this method was not successful, and he had to obtain funding to purchase it. The
Plumsock Fund, associated with the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Me-soamerica (CIRMA) of Antigua, Guatemala, provided the money for its purchase, and the fragment was transferred to Guatemala’s IDAEH in 1986 (Alfonzo 1986:202; Mayer 1986). In other words, Guatemala had to find money to purchase a sculpture that had been documented as coming from Piedras Negras and established as Guatemalan property but which subsequently had been stolen. The decision of the dealers and the French government to refuse to return the sculpture and insist instead on its purchase, while apparently legal, was ethically reprehensible.
Guatemala recovered and repatriated monuments from other sites through various means. For example, the Guatemalan government sued U. S. Customs for the return of the mutilated Naranjo Stela 30 (Coggins 1969:94, 96). Fragments of this stela had been smuggled to Houston via British Honduras in crates marked “machinery,” but one crate allegedly broke open. Customs officers seized the fragments in 1967 and held them in a Houston warehouse, and Guatemala had to sue U. S. Customs for their release (Houston Post 1968; Melton 1968a, 1968b, 1969). Stela 30 was eventually returned to Guatemala (Robertson 1972:154). Another famous case of a monument’s return was that of Machaquila Stela 2. The FBI seized this stela in 1972, and the dealer Clive Hollinshead was convicted in Los Angeles Federal Court for illegal importation and transportation under federal stolen property law (Hughes 1977; Lacombe 1976:8-9; Nafziger 1975:72; see also I. Graham 2010:436-38).
There are other, more recent, cases of Guatemala pursuing monuments from American museums. Roger Atwood (2004:145) cites a Guatemalan campaign in 1997 for the return of looted materials from American museums, with international assistance. One result was the Denver Art Museum’s return in 1998 of a carved wooden lintel from El Zotz. The lintel is now on display at MUNAE. Also targeted was the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) for accepting a donation of Maya ceramics in 1988. Both the press, especially the Boston Globe, and the Guatemalan government denounced the MFA, charging that the vessels were illegally exported. Despite the criticism, the MFA resisted return of the ceramics (Dorfman 1998:29). The MFA weathered the storm, and this collection was recently reinstalled in the MFA’s new Art of the Americas wing. Guatemala’s claims for repatriation, of course, are not in a vacuum and are analogous to the demands for the return of antiquities from other areas of the world, including Greece and Italy (e. g., Gill and Chippindale 2007).
At the same time, there is criticism of the practice of repatriating objects. Avexnim Cojti Ren, a scholar and activist from Chichicastenango, Guatemala, critiques the repatriation of objects when they are given to national museums—and not to the sites for which they were originally made or to the descendants of the people who made them (e. g., Cojti Ren, n. d.). Alternatively, some argue against the return of antiquities because of the essential roles they play in museums throughout the world. For example, James Cuno, former president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago (now president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust), has argued that encyclopedic museums that hold objects from around the world and place pieces from many cultures side by side are important for encouraging tolerance and crosscultural understanding (Cuno 2008:xxxi).
Setting aside the question of what should happen to the already removed objects, we must continue to advocate and diligently work for the protection of the
Archaeological heritage of the ancient Maya and other civilizations of the world.49 Also crucial is continued cooperation among museums across the world in helping to care for ancient sites and objects.
Finally, also necessary will be the continuing efforts of archaeologists and other organizations collaborating with and exchanging knowledge with communities near archaeological sites and working to provide opportunities for their economic growth. In his article on subsistence digging, David Matsuda contends that Central American governments and archaeologists should work to counter the poverty and inequality that may drive some people to participate in the looting trade. He claims that “the improvement of conditions for indigenous peoples must be a part of all funded excavation work” (Matsuda 1998:94). A number of organizations are working with communities in the Americas and elsewhere to protect ruins and encourage economic growth in the communities surrounding archaeological sites. These include the Maya Area Cultural Heritage Initiative, the Sustainable Preservation Initiative, and archaeological projects at places such as Chocola and Cancuen, among others (see Bawaya 2005; Breglia 2007; Kraemer 2008). Hopefully more projects will follow their lead.
World History
