Harvard Archaeologist Graham Identifies Stolen Mayan Artifact

A thousand-year-old Mayan artifact will be returned to Guatemala next week thanks to the efforts of Harvard archaeologist Ian Graham.

Graham, the Director of the Maya Corpus Program at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, first learned of the missing artifact in 1971 while excavating El Peru, an archaeological site in northern Guatemala.

At the site, he found a seven-foot-tall stone monument that had been built by Mayans over a thousand years ago. But the statue's elaborate pectoral ornament was missing.

"I got there six years too late," Graham said. Looters "really trashed the site."

While some pieces of the monument were chipped away by natural causes, the ornament was smoothly sawed off, indicating that it had been stolen.

Then, more than 15 years later, Graham recognized the object when he came across a photograph of an artifact put up for sale an American collector.

"I knew straightaway that it had come from the monument," he said. "It fit exactly."

Though Graham had never seen the object in place, he was able to establish its authenticity based on the rest of the monument's ornamentation.

Images of human heads carved in the stone matched those on the rest of the statue.

Graham--who has an archive of more than 40,000 artifact photos--has been involved with the recovery of stolen artifacts before.

And Guatemalan Consul General Fabiola Fuentes-Orellana said Graham's reputation was enough to convince Guatemalan authorities of the artifact's authenticity.

"Dr. Graham is an expert," Fuentes-Orellana said. "The authenticity has been confirmed."

After speaking with attorneys representing Guatemala, the art collector, whose identity is being withheld, agreed to return the ornament. It will be returned to Guatemala next week and will likely be displayed at the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Guatemala City. Eventually, it could be displayed with the monument, according to Howard N. Spiegler, an attorney with the firm representing Guatemala.

Fuentes-Orellana said Guatemala has a right to the return of its stolen artifacts, but often finds it difficult to exercise the right since the artifacts are difficult to locate and authenticate.

"There are a few more stolen pieces all around the world," Fuentes-Orellana said. "All archaeological pieces [that are determined to be from Guatemala] belong to Guatemala. The president has given special commands to assist this effort and to negotiate."

But since laws against smuggling the artifacts did not exist until 1972, the country often has difficulty locating and retrieving missing artifacts.

"The pillaging and smuggling of archaeological sites were quite common," Spiegler said. "In particular, Guatemala has suffered in the last few decades, as have other countries rich in artwork."