El Zotz Lintel 1

El Zotz Lintel 1

This rare 6th century CE chicozapote wood lintel depicting a royal figure was returned to Guatemala by the Denver Art Museum in 1998.

Originally placed above a doorway as a decorative element, this nearly 6-foot tall carving was made by Maya artisans of the site now known as El Zotz. The larger of the two surviving sections includes the side profile of a ruler who is identified by his elaborate dress and the bar of office in his left hand. The smaller section consists solely of hieroglyphic text which mentions the mother and father of the ruler. This lintel would have originally been found on Structure M7-1.

This lintel from El Zotz is unique due to its material – there are only four other known surviving examples of lintels made from wood. Some of the most well-known examples of Maya lintels are those of limestone from Yaxchilan, now on display in the British Museum.

The late 1960s saw an outburst in looting activity in the Petén Basin area of northern Guatemala. El Zotz was relatively unknown to archaeologists at this time and thus left unprotected. The first expedition in 1977 to investigate reports of looting arrived to find that El Zotz had already been plundered. Over 100 looter trenches have been found across the site alongside inscriptions from the looters themselves in trees and temple walls.

El Zotz Lintel 1 was likely taken between 1966 and 1968. The wooden artwork was significantly damaged by looters, who cut away the back in order to make it lighter for shipping. The reckless use of a hatchet also resulted in the blade cutting through the front of the piece and damaging the carving.

The lintel resurfaced in New York in the early 1970 s where it was sold by New York art dealer Edward H Merrin to Berry & Stark Associates, a law firm based in Denver, Colorado. The law firm then donated the piece to the Denver Art Museum in 1973. At the time, there were no laws in the United States of America that prohibited importing and acquiring Pre-Columbian Art from Guatemala.

Merrin was later featured in a 1989 New York Times article discussing the ethics of the antiquities market. Despite being an extremely rare example of Maya art, Merrin claimed to have no memory of making the sale. But he did not deny selling it, and stated that if he did, it was ''as a service, because I thought it belonged in a museum rather than a private collection."

Interestingly, it is the public display of El Zotz Lintel 1 at the Denver Art Museum that was the first step in tracing its illegal removal from Guatemala. In 1973, the same year the piece was donated, Maya archaeologist Ian Graham visited the museum and viewed the piece in person. Graham later took part in a 1978 expedition to El Zotz where he began recording inscriptions.

One of the most important discoveries Graham made on this expedition was a series of wooden fragments found in Structure M7-1. Graham was later able to trace these fragments back to the lintel he saw on display in Denver due to their size, carving style, and traces of pigment. The discovery of these fragments, alongside the damage to the piece by the looter's hatchet, provided confirming evidence that the piece had been taken from El Zotz.

The Denver Art Museum had originally believed the piece came from near the Mexico-Guatemala border. But personal correspondence from 1979 between archeologist Karl-Herbert Mayer and an unnamed curator at the Denver Art Museum suggested that the museum had additional information to suggest the piece came from El Zotz.

Despite this and Graham's discovery, it was not until 1998 that the Denver Art Museum returned the El Zotz Lintel 1 to Guatemala. The Denver Art Museum's press release suggested a key reason for the return was the United States of America's 1983 adoption of implementing legislation for the UNESCO Convention on the Manner of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Because it was known from which site and even from which building this lintel was removed during the late 1960s, the museum said it believed it was proper to return the lintel to Guatemala .

El Zotz Lintel 1 is currently in the collections of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

1

Monument – obelisks, stelae, tombstones, totem poles

Architecture – antefixes, doors, sconces, friezes

Maya

Berry & Stark Associates

Denver Art Museum

Guatemala

Jasmine Gloria

Jason Felch