Benque ruins razed by bulldozer
There was supposed to be a mass demonstration today to protest the destruction of a Maya mound in Benque Viejo. For whatever reason, the people didn’t turn out, but the work of the bulldozer has been stopped and Institute of Archaeology personnel were on the scene. So was the Mayor, and he was not the only one asking how a well-known Maya site came under attack.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
Archaeological terrorism is probably too strong a description in this case, but in terms of what was lost when a Benque Viejo del Carmen property owner pushed a bulldozer through a Mayan mound, few other words come to mind. Armed with a measuring tape, a notebook, and a pen Senior Archaeologist John Morris has begun the tedious process of trying to salvage the site.
John Morris, Senior Archaeologist
“This mound that was destroyed by the bulldozer extended about fifteen meters out. The bulldozer just ripped it up, so you see all the rubble still around here. So we’re trying to assess how much damage was done to this mound by the bulldozer and then also to determine how much we can salvage, how much information we can salvage from the damage that was done out here.”
All this damage was done on Tuesday afternoon, when property owner Francisco Miranda began preparation of the land for the construction of a house. The property, number 770 on the title document, was issued to Miranda in December of 2002, even though it is well within a designated archaeological reserve.
Miranda, who declined an on camera interview, says he got the go ahead to start construction from a top official in the Institute of Archaeology. But when Anthony Goff, the man contracted to level the land to lay the foundation started bulldozing, it set off a chain reaction that brought construction to a screeching halt.
Anthony Goff, Bulldozer Driver
“I never did get off the machine as a matter of fact. I was just digging and trying to level it out when I saw the mayor and his people came out, they were like, this is an archaeological site, so they told me to stop, so I stopped. The owner came back out and she told me to keep on digging, but I waited for a while, you know and when the archaeological people came out here, Mr. Morris told me this is an archaeological site and I need to stop, so automatically I just stopped.”
By the time the bulldozer fell silent, more than half of one mound lay in ruin. This morning officials of the Archaeology Department were picking up pottery shards that hinted of artefacts dating back thousands of years.
John Morris
“Its about 750 A.D. It’s a distinctive type of Belize red, what we call Belize red in Maya studies. And it’s a marker that we know gives us a dating like that. I was looking at an area there that seemed to have been a disturbed burial. I’m trying to figure out whether or not what kind of condition it will be in, but the rocks and the rubble is just too much. Hopefully we’ll be able to do some more work and give a more definitive date for the occupation of this area here.”
Patrick Jones
“The major Mayan site of Xunantunich is located just two kilometres north of where I’m standing. Archaeologists believe that this was an important staging area for agricultural produce headed to Xunantunich. They also believe that an elite lord lived here at one time because a temple is located here.”
John Morris
“A lot of these mounds that are found on these hilltops surrounding Benque probably were part of the Xunantunich state or polity or whatever the region as you want to call it. And this one was quite important because it not only possesses small mounds, but it also has a little temple pyramid in the middle of it. So rituals were probably conducted here. I have noted already that there seem to be two or three construction phases of this building here dating from about 150 A.D., which we call the early pre-classic in Maya terms up to the late classic. The last floor seem to have been build sometime around 750 A.D., so we’re talking about six, seven hundred years of occupation at this particular site, that people lived here.”
How much of that history now lies beneath this pile of dirt, Morris and his team are now trying to figure out. Mayor of Benque Viejo del Carmen Said “Badi” Guerra says immediate steps must be taken now to prevent further destruction.
Said “Badi” Guerra, Mayor, Benque Viejo del Carmen
“It’s a shame and it’s embarrassing, and I am very disappointed because we called archaeology about a month ago. This is an ongoing thing, it didn’t just happen the past year, it has been happening for the past probably ten years. But I can see now that politics plays a big role here. We are going to definitely stand up for our people; we’re going to definitely fight for their rights because this a violation of the law.”
Guerra says he was at a meeting in Belize City when he got a call informing him that the bulldozer was tearing down the site. He immediately rushed back to Benque, but not in time to save the mound.
Morris says the priority now is to salvage as much information as possible from the site then their attention will turn to the perpetrators of the crime. But the question is: who is responsible? The property owner? The bulldozer operator? Or someone in the Lands Department who issued title to the property? Guerra says a good place to start is with the owner Mr. Miranda.
Said “Badi” Guerra
“He is not the one to be blamed, totally. In a way yes, in a little yes because everybody knows here that this is an archaeological site and that this is a reserve area. Even the children in school know it, that this is a reserve area. But I blame whosoever issued that legal document. Its property, he has it as a property. Other people have it as a lease, but he has it as a property.”
And Miranda is not the only person who has disturbed the site, as construction of another building is well underway right in the middle of the series of mounds, next to the pyramid. Morris says the department has always known that the mounds were there and that there were plans to eventually rehabilitate them to form part of the town’s tourism product. While the destruction has accelerated work on excavating the site, Morris says recuperating the loss is virtually impossible.
John Morris
“Well, anytime you loose mounds of this nature, it’s like they always say, it’s priceless. History is priceless; you can’t put a figure on it. It saddens me to realize that whatever information we could have learned from what’s going on out here has been destroyed. It’s a loss for Belize, it’s a loss for the world in general.”
Patrick Jones, for News 5.
Clearing of the site has begun and on Friday a team from the Institute of Archaeology will begin excavations. According to NICH Administrator, Victor Espat, no construction work will be allowed on the property until it has been properly surveyed and determined whether or not there is anything of particular historical importance on it.
