Abstract

PALACIOS, Guillermo. The Dredging of the Sacred Cenote of Chichén Itzá 1904-1914. Hist. mex. [online]. 2017, vol.67, n.2, pp.659-740. ISSN 2448-6531.  https://doi.org/10.24201/hm.v67i2.3475.

This article analyzes the “restoration” of a treasure of incalculable value, taken from Chichén Itzá’s Sacred Cenote with the help of a primitive dredge installed along its edge by Edward H. Thompson, then the U.S. consul in Progreso, and financed by Harvard University’s Peabody Museum and private collectors from the Boston area. This “restoration” began in 1904 and continued up until 1907, with periodic resumptions up until 1909, the year in which Thompson resigned from his consular position, which marked the weakening of the network of complicity that he had been weaving since 1875 to allow him to illegally export hundreds of Maya pieces to the University of Cambridge. The article concludes in 1914, when the violence of the Mexican Revolution unintentionally put an end to the looting of Chichén Itzá.

Keywords : Chichén Itzá; Sacred Cenote; 20^th Century; Mayas; Edward H. Thompson..