The odyssey of the 'frieze of Pleasures', the huge piece of Mayan pyramid stolen in the jungle 50 years ago

It is surely one of the largest antiquities thefts in Mesoamerica.

"It would be like buying a piece of the Parthenon," said one of the directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Joseph Veach Noble, when he saw the loot from the great

, a magnificent and enormous stucco relief from the Classic Maya period — 8.39 meters long, 2.48 meters high and nearly two tons, depicting a young ruler flanked by two deified ancestors — stolen by an international group of traffickers of works of art art, who entered the jungle of Campeche and, in 1968, ripped up the colossal piece in small fragments at the point of an electric saw, which they later transported by plane to the United States to sell it to the New York Met.

Unsuccessfully.

The 48 pieces of the puzzle were repatriated to Mexico a year later, in 1969, after Thomas PF Hoving, then director of the Met, refused to pay $400,000 for them and notified Ignacio Bernal, a famous archaeologist and director of the Institute, of the theft. of Anthropology and History.

54 years after that mythical robbery,

At the time of its extraction, the relief was covered with a layer of synthetic polymer, cloth and plaster and, later, it was cut into 48 sections, which were packed in wooden boxes to be transferred to the city of New York, in the United States. United Monica Gonzalez Islands

Upon arrival in Mexico, in 1969, the 48 pieces of the façade were assembled as if they were a

by the restorer Carlos Sigüenza.

“Almost half of the surface is replacement and only the relief stuccos are original, the restorer was unable to clean the polychromy, or free the piece from the polymer.

He left a whitish layer that prevented seeing the original design.

It had a very ugly finish: artificial and plastic.

With that we find ourselves in 2014, when the ambitious restoration began.

Before, the piece did not attract attention, it was not known, its only merit was that it had been stolen, that it went to New York and came back”, explains the restorer Sergio González, in an interview with EL PAÍS.

Journalist Karl E. Meyer, in his book The Looting of the Past, explains the abduction in detail: “He was a crooked trafficker.

No other has done more to meet the demand for works of art than the man I will call Henry Beta,” he wrote.

Beta started in business in the 1940s.

But, in 1968 he carried out one of the most daring robberies of him.

He entered the little-explored jungle of Calakmul — one of the largest cities in the Mayan world, which stands in the second largest natural reserve in America, a world heritage site — to tear out the relief from a Mayan pyramid.

The operation cost him more than 80,000 dollars.

A merchant from Mérida organized a work group in order to build a landing strip in a chiclero camp called

.

The thieves covered the relief with a polymer called

to prevent it from disintegrating and to be able to separate it from the rest of the construction, they used electric saws that collided with stone pegs and the vibrations loosened part of the stucco.

Irreparable damage.

The fragments, packed in 48 boxes, were shipped under false labels to New Orleans;

then to New York.

Never before has a gang of traffickers of pre-Columbian art dared so much.

After the robbery, UNESCO would approve its convention for the protection of cultural heritage;

The United States passed its own law to control the entry into the country of pre-Columbian art and, in 1972, Mexico published its federal law on Monuments and Archaeological Zones, to prevent looting and preserve the nation's cultural heritage.

Detail of the restoration of the frieze known as the 'Relieve de Pleasures', in the National Museum of AnthropologyMónica González Islas

“What we can see is that it was not an improvised technique;

people knew what he was doing and they had already thought about where to sell it,” explains restorer Sergio González, who has worked for 17 years at the National Museum of Anthropology and History.

He presented the restoration project because he had detected deterioration in the structure that supported the façade.

“The risk that the pieces would fall and harm a visitor was imminent.

It was at this moment that we realized that there was a color behind the polymer, which was what was visible.

There was a polychromy that had not been seen since it was looted”, he explains.

The specialists sought to remove the reddish tone and restore its original color, eliminate the salts accumulated in the main mask and rescue its iconography.

The first step of the project,

in which experts from INAH and the UNAM Aesthetic Research Institute participated, consisted of a photographic record and a chemical analysis of the materials and the manufacturing technique.

“The experts in charge of this phase —coordinated by the restorers Nora Pérez Castellanos and Armando Arciniega Corona— identified that the pigments used in the polychromy of the relief are iron oxides in different degrees of oxidation for the red colors;

carbon black for the pupils of the characters;

and lime white for nails and other details in the eyes”.

The structure was changed for a more stable and solid one, which made the frieze so heavy that it was decided not to move it;

so it was decided to do the restoration work in the room.

The polymer was also cleaned.

The second phase consisted of the structural stabilization of the piece, which involved the renovation of the metallic framework that serves as its support.

“Based on three-dimensional and volumetric calculations, we welded a new structure that supports each fragment with at least four supports”, so that the two tons that the relief weighs rest on a stable frame.

An advantage of the new structure is its mobile character, which will facilitate the maintenance of the piece.

Already stable, the piece was subjected to a comprehensive cleaning, which required two years of work, between 2020 and 2021, to fully remove the polymer using products created by the researchers of this project.

we welded a new structure that supports each fragment with at least four supports”, so that the two tons that the relief weighs rest on a stable frame.

An advantage of the new structure is its mobile character, which will facilitate the maintenance of the piece.

Already stable, the piece was subjected to a comprehensive cleaning, which required two years of work, between 2020 and 2021, to fully remove the polymer using products created by the researchers of this project.

we welded a new structure that supports each fragment with at least four supports”, so that the two tons that the relief weighs rest on a stable frame.

An advantage of the new structure is its mobile character, which will facilitate the maintenance of the piece.

Already stable, the piece was subjected to a comprehensive cleaning, which required two years of work, between 2020 and 2021, to fully remove the polymer using products created by the researchers of this project.

At the time of its extraction, the relief was covered with a layer of synthetic polymer, cloth and plaster and, later, it was cut into 48 sections, which were packed in wooden boxes to be transferred to the city of New York, in the United States. United.Mónica González Islas

“We asked ourselves many ethical questions, such as at what level we wanted to show the piece.

We decided that we did not want it to look pretty, but rather to guarantee its permanence over time.

The purpose is to return to the relief the characteristics it had before it was stolen, including the damage caused by being outdoors.

we want to show the traces of time, we do not want to remove the evidence of wear”, explains González.

The piece goes through its final touches: cleaning, chromatic reintegration of the patches and replacements so that they are not more striking than the original reliefs.

“Cleaning has been the most demanding task, since the polymer was difficult to remove, after remaining stuck for 50 years, and a special gel had to be designed for this process.

Another difficult stage was that, during the pandemic,

Two of our colleagues lost their lives, Jenny Ayala Cuevas and Felipe Coraza Arguijo.

In addition, work was stopped and then returned in a staggered manner.

The pause meant that the work was delayed for months”, says the restorer.

Detail of the restoration of the frieze. Mónica González Islas

Thomas PF Hoving, director of the Met, sought to celebrate the museum's centenary, in 1970, with the most ambitious exhibition of the cultures of Mesoamerica: 'Before Cortés'.

For years, members of the Met traveled Europe and Latin America to persuade reluctant owners to lend pieces for the show.

In December 1968, the museum had to decide what to do with the facade of the temple, which was in its laboratory.

Before a decision was made, members of the museum traveled to Mexico for a dinner.

Among those present were the banker and collector Josué Sáenz and Dr. Ignacio Bernal.

Sáenz was told by Dudley T. Easby, first head of the Met's Primitive Art department, that he suffered from pulmonary emphysema: “People say that you come to Mexico by ship not because of your health, but to rob our temples.

They also say that the black bag that he carries with him is not for medicines, but for the money with which he buys temples.”

Easby didn't reply.

In New York, the decision was made to notify Ignacio Bernal, who soon arrived at the Metropolitan Museum to examine the loot.

He identified the facade of the temple as Mexican property.

A day later, Noble called Henry Beta and asked him to come to the museum.

Suspecting nothing, Beta arrived with the genial air of a dealer about to close a big sale.

Noble told Beta that the museum was not only not buying the temple but would also be returning it to Mexico.

Beta asked to be reimbursed for the $80,000 it had cost him to get the temple out of the jungle.

"Do you mean that after he has robbed one of our temples, he wants us to pay him for his expenses?"

Beta was advised to accept the loss and to keep in mind that she could easily find herself in legal trouble in Mexico.

She repacked the temple into about 60 boxes and left New York aboard a special flight of the Mexican national airline.

Back of the Mayan frieze during its restoration.

The structure is made to measure for the assembly of the piece in the Sala MayaMónica González Islas

In December, the already restored frieze will be exhibited together with a

that will project how the building it decorated would have looked.

Sergio González hopes that this great restoration encourages the Institute of Anthropology and History to carry out an expedition and learn more about the history of the mysterious frieze: “I would say that the life of the

is just beginning.

We want our restoration to provide new information to archaeologists and specialists.

Also that the public can appreciate it.

Because the piece impresses and causes sensations to everyone who sees it”.

Visitors to the Museum of Anthropology and History stop to observe the restoration of the frieze of pleasures. Mónica González Islas

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