From: prs9k@brain.med.virginia.edu (Phil Scarr)
Subject: Re: Restoration of Mexican Ruins
Organization: Neuroclinical Trials Center, University of Virginia
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 18:14:23 GMT

In article <rbkatz-070193123617@128.96.93.74> rbkatz@cc.bellcore.com (Bob Katz) writes:
>In December, I had the chance to visit a few archeological sites in Mexico,
>including Teotihuacan and Monte Alban.  Although restoration on these sites
>began a long time ago, the work is continuing, particularly at Monte Alban.
> I was told by someone who grew up near Monte Alban that the restored area
>is now much larger than it had been a few years ago.
>
>Climbing the ruins and watching some restoration work at Monte Alban raised
>several questions in my mind about exactly how the restoration work in
>Mexico is managed and about what steps are taken to ensure that the
>restored structures are like the original ones.  Here are a couple of
>observations.
>
>1.  The structures at Monte Alban were restored at different times over the
>past decades, and the restoration work is continuing.  It can be pretty
>obvious (particularly from the color of the stones and mortar) which
>structures are newly restored.  But it also seemed to me that the
>restoration techniques differed over the decades.  For example, in the
>newer restorations, the mortar between the stones seemed to contain fairly
>large-sized pebbles, but this didn't seem to be true of the older
>restorations.

Techniques of archaeological restoration have changed over the years.
The newer restorations have to be able to withstand the tromping of lots
more tourists than were visiting mexico in the 1930's and 40's when much
reconstruction was done.  The pebbles you noticed are intentionally
placed in the mortar to indicate reconstructed walls.  They began doing
that in the 1960s.

>
>2.  At Monte Alban, I watched a large work crew doing some restoration
>work.  What I saw were men with shovels removing stones from mounds and
>placing them into huge piles some distance away.  They were also dumping
>many, many wheelbarrows of dirt even farther away.  It seemed as though
>they were disassembling most of an unrestored structure, and I supposed
>that they were then going to reconstruct it.

When I worked at Copan in Honduras, we had a separate crew who's job it
was to disassemble and reassemble the buildings we were digging.
Archaeologists get the information they need by mapping areas of the
building in its excavated state and then turning it over to the
restorers.

>
>Can someone answer a few questions about what I saw?:
>
>I know that it's possible that the differences in restoration technique in
>different parts of Monte Alban could reflect a change in the construction
>of the original structures.  But it's also possible that the change was
>done for engineering or monetary reasons.  Is their goal to restore
>structures to the original, or is it to assemble them so that they're
>somewhat similar to the original but can stand up to thousands of tourists
>climbing all over them for years to come?

Much of the restoration is done in the interest of the later rather than
the former.  Tourism brings in loads of bucks.

>
>I'd originally thought that restoring structures would involve mainly
>removing debris and plants from ruins, shoring up the original stonework,
>and replacing missing stones.  But I saw men disassembling ruins.  Is it
>true that the restoration work involves disassembling then re-assembling
>structures?

Nope.  The cleanup part is called excavation and is done by
archaeologists.  The reconstruction is done by masons and involves the
disassembly and reassembly of the building.

>
>In the restoration work, what steps are taken to ensure that the basic
>architecture of the restored structures are like those of the original? 

At Copan, the restorers used a numbering system to keep track of where
the stones came from and the rebuilt from there.  They would work on
small sections at a time.

>From seeing unrestored structures, it seemed that it could be difficult to
>tell the exact details of the original structures.  How much artistic
>license is granted to the people who do the restoration work?

A lot...

>
>Thanks.
>
>Bob

	-Phil
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(--)== prs9k@virginia.edu === Phil Scarr === Department of Neurosurgery ==(--)