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# Tropical Storm Agatha (1992) Tropical Storm Agatha was the deadliest tropical cyclone to form during the 1992 Pacific hurricane season, killing 10 people as it passed offshore Mexico. The third named storm of the record-breaking season, Agatha developed as a tropical depression off the Pacific coast of Mexico on June 1. The storm gradually organized over the next several hours. As it moved northward, the depression intensified into Tropical Storm Agatha later that day. After reaching its peak winds as a strong tropical storm, Agatha steadily weakened while turning to the west. The system was downgraded to a tropical depression on June 5, and subsequently lost its tropical characteristics the next day. Although Agatha never made landfall, the storm's outer rainbands triggered widespread flooding that killed ten people. ## Meteorological history On May 26, a tropical wave—or a quasi-equatorward area of low pressure—moved off the Central American coast into the east Pacific. Over the subsequent days the system produced a broad area of convection, which began to show signs of organization on May 29. Early on June 1, the disturbance became better defined, and shortly thereafter the National Hurricane Center (NHC) classified it as a tropical depression while located 460 mi (740 km) southwest of Acapulco. At the time, the depression maintained good outflow aloft; it was forecast to strengthen into a minimal hurricane after three days. Based on a combination of ship data and Dvorak intensity estimates, the system was upgraded into Tropical Storm Agatha on June 2. For the first two days of its duration, Agatha steered toward the north while embedded within a deep southerly flow. Steady intensification continued, and the storm reached winds of 50 mph (90 km/h) six hours after being upgraded as it neared the coast of Mexico. By the afternoon of June 2, the center exhibited an elongated appearance within its associated central dense overcast, a large area of organized mid-tropospheric convection. Around 1800 UTC that same day, the storm peaked in intensity with winds of 70 mph (110 km/h) and a minimum pressure of 990 mbar (hPa; 29.23 inHg). Maintaining its peak intensity for 30 hours, Agatha gradually decelerated as it passed within 100 mi (160 km) southwest of the Mexican coast. Although specialists at the NHC had anticipated a Category 1-hurricane landfall on the territory, the storm defied predictions and stayed at sea. The center of the storm promptly became ill-defined on infrared satellite imagery, simultaneously recurving to the west. Agatha continued to degenerate quickly into the morning of June 4, with a ragged appearance observed on satellite imagery. By 0600 UTC June 5, the storm was downgraded back into tropical depression status prior to dissipating the next day. ## Preparations and impact On June 2, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center anticipated Agatha to make landfall in Mexico near hurricane strength. In light of this, a tropical storm warning and hurricane watch were issued for the Pacific coast of Mexico between Tenexpa to Cabo Corrites around 2100 UTC that day. Additionally, heavy rains from the system prompted concerns over mudslides and flash floods. Following Agatha's turn towards the west early on June 3, the watches and warnings were discontinued. Roughly 1,500 people evacuated from coastal areas of Michoacán due to the threat of damaging winds and flooding. Although the center of Agatha remained offshore, heavy rains within the system's outer rainbands impacted southwestern and central Mexico. Widespread flooding and mudslides killed ten people and left thousands homeless. Along the coast, waves reportedly reached heights of 16 ft (4.9 m). ## See also - Other storms with the same name - 1992 Pacific hurricane season

# GISHWHES The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen (GISHWHES, pronounced gish-wes) (shortened to just "GISH") was an annual week-long competitive media scavenger hunt originally held each October or November, but more recently each August. Teams of five to 15 (previously nine to 15 before 2022) competitors earned points for submitting photos and videos of themselves completing prompts from a list they received at the beginning of the week. Actor Misha Collins officially founded GISHWHES in 2011 after a publicity stunt to help the television series Supernatural (in which Collins appeared) win a People's Choice Award. The competition held a world record for being the largest media scavenger hunt ever to take place, and several additional world records. The hunt also raised funds in support of several charities each year, and was affiliated with the Random Acts 501c3. ## History Actor Misha Collins, known for playing the angel Castiel on the American television series Supernatural, is the founder of GISHWHES. The competition began informally in 2010 when Holly Ollis, a publicist for Warner Bros., asked Collins to engage his audience to help Supernatural move from second place to first in the People's Choice Awards voting. Collins posted a message on Twitter, declaring that if the show won, Ollis had promised him a rhinoceros which he would share with everyone who helped by voting for the show. When Supernatural won the competition, Collins, partially inspired by his time at the University of Chicago as an undergraduate during which he participated in the school's annual scavenger hunt, asked his followers to send him self-addressed stamped envelopes into which he put scavenger hunt prompts written on the backs of jigsaw puzzle pieces from a puzzle depicting a rhino. Soon, participants began to respond to Collins's "absurd" requests. One successful prompt, for example, challenged fans to photograph a group of firemen wearing nothing but kale. Collins enjoyed this exercise so much that he decided to create an official scavenger hunt in 2011. He established the event's website and gave it its name, the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, calling its acronym, GISHWHES, "the ugliest acronym the world has ever seen". According to Collins, the primary reason for developing the competition was that he "loved the idea of thousands of people from all over the world connecting to create incredible things". He hoped to use GISHWHES to encourage participants "to do good in the world". The inaugural event, categorized by Guinness World Records as a "media scavenger hunt", broke the record for the largest scavenger hunt of its kind. In 2012, it broke its own record with 14,580 participants, representing 69 different countries. The contest broke two additional world records in 2013: the longest safety pin chain, measuring 1,901.8 metres (6,239.5 ft), and the largest online photo album of hugs, totaling 108,121 images. On November 19, 2022, Misha Collins announced that he was officially putting GISH events on hold for the time being, saying he needed to focus his energy elsewhere. ## Contest On the first day of the week-long competition, a list is posted on the GISHWHES website with over 150 different tasks for competitors to complete during the hunt, which Collins and his friends, including co-coordinator Jean Louis Alexander, have devised prior to the beginning of the competition. Teams then submit photos or videos of themselves completing the prompts at the contest's website, receiving points for each item completed. While literal interpretations of prompts are preferred, judges will sometimes award points for especially creative responses. Prizes for the team with the most points at the end of GISHWHES have included a trip to Scotland for a slumber party with Collins and a trip to Vancouver for a "Viking surprise". Teams consist of 15 members who may come from different countries. Individuals may prearrange teams or sign up individually, in which case they are randomly grouped into appropriately sized teams. As of the 2019 contest, signup costs ran US$25 per person with part of the participation fees going towards Random Acts, a non-profit run by Collins that aims to encourage random acts of kindness. In 2018 the competition was rebranded under the name Greatest International Scavenger Hunt (GISH), and added a free app that can be downloaded to have information in a simpler and direct fashion, and to directly chat with others on their team or close to their location. In April 2020 Misha Collins announced GISH would be launching their first ever 24 hour mini hunt, beginning April 25. Money raised from this hunt provided meals for children impacted by Covid-related school closures. This was also the first GISH hunt that Misha Collins has personally participated in, along with his wife Vikki and children West and Maison. Another 24 hour mini hunt was scheduled for May 30. ### Challenges GISHWHES challenges vary widely in focus and sometimes attract media attention. The Los Angeles-focused OC Weekly reported on a local ice cream shop's response to a GISHWHES team that asked them to create a custom ice cream flavor for the 2013 challenge "Get your team's new ice cream flavor on sale in an ice cream parlor". Another challenge involved participants using and spreading the word abnosome, Collins's portmanteau of abnormal and awesome. During the 2013 hunt, competitors were asked to dress up as the DC Comics character Flash and have their pictures taken next to a functioning particle accelerator. As a result, the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and Fermilab received numerous emails from GISHWHES participants and set up special tours for the visitors. Dean Golembeski reported in Symmetry, the official magazine of Fermilab and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, that the visits were welcomed and seen as an opportunity to educate a wider audience on the goals of and research done at national laboratories. Most GISHWHES challenges were completed successfully by at least one team, according to Collins. During the 2012 contest, for example, only one item saw no successes: coating a commercial blimp with fall leaves. Collins speculated it failed because of physical limitations. A 2013 challenge noted by Écrans, a French website run by Libération, challenged competitors to convince astronauts on the International Space Station to take a photo holding a sign with their team's name. Efforts by participants were headed off by NASA, which posted that the astronauts were unable to participate on its official Twitter account. #### Gallery ## Reception Aspects of the contests have been well received by some media outlets. A writer for Nerdist.com called it an "avalanche of awesomeness" and compared the hunt's acronym to "an apocryphal GWAR album or a lesser deity in H.P. Lovecraft's consonant-laden pantheon". Reviewing the experience of participating in GISHWHES, a writer for Detroit's WKBD-TV described the contest as "a lot of fun" and recommended that others participate in the future. Shanghai Daily deemed several of GISHWHES's challenges "outrageous" and "visually stunning". Laura Prudom of The Huffington Post commended Collins's "herculean" efforts in organizing the event. Not all reception has been positive. Emily VanDerWerff wrote for Vox that, "Quite a few of the items basically invite participants to pester—or even harass—the famous and semi-famous on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook." A 2014 challenge asked hunters to convince published science fiction authors to write a 140-character story for them and some, such as John Scalzi and Lauren DeStefano, complained that the task encouraged participants to harass them on social networks. In an article analyzing Collins's relationship with his fanbase, Middlebury College Assistant Professor Louisa Ellen Stein argued that GISHWHES was a "co-authored transmedia experience" that "play[ed] with [the] power, erotics, and emotional excess present in Collins' fandom." Citing participants' independent efforts to coordinate teams using a variety of online platforms, Stein suggested that "GISHWHES may lack the overt language of industrial reconfiguration found in the Divine Kickstarter Project [a webseries that Collins engaged his fans to help fund]. But through its satire and dadaist play, it more fully models the potential for a congregation of authors, both official and unofficial, to direct fannish and creative investment into digital participation." Stein further argued that "decentralized projects like Gishwhes, with creators who fully immerse themselves in the surrounding digital cultures, show us the potential for future transmedia creative authorship in millennial culture." ## World records GISHWHES has broken several Guinness World Records. - Largest Photo Scavenger Hunt (2011) - Largest Media Scavenger Hunt (2012) - 14,580 participants - Most Pledges for a Campaign/to Complete a Random Act of Kindness (2012) - 93,376 pledges - Largest Online Photo Album of Hugs (2013) - 108,121 hugs - Largest Chain of Safety Pins (2013) - 3,583 feet (1,092 meters) long - Largest Gathering of People Dressed as French Maids (2014) - 695 participants - Most People in a Decorated Hat Competition (2014) - Longest Human Chain to Pass Through a Hula Hoop (2014) - 572 participants - Most Painted Rocks In One Place at One Time (2021) - 21,790 rocks

# Romney Classical Institute Romney Classical Institute was a 19th-century coeducational collegiate preparatory school in Romney, Virginia (present-day West Virginia), United States, between 1846 and shortly after 1866. Romney had previously been served by Romney Academy, but by 1831 the school had outgrown its facilities. The Virginia General Assembly permitted the Romney Literary Society to raise funds for a new school through a lottery. On December 12, 1846, the assembly established the school and empowered the society with its operation. From 1846 to 1849, the institute was directed by Presbyterian Reverend William Henry Foote, who had been a teacher and principal at Romney Academy. In 1849, when the Romney Literary Society revamped the operating code and bylaws for the institute, Foote took offense; he established a rival school, Potomac Seminary, the next year. Professor E. J. Meany succeeded Foote, and was followed by eventual West Virginia governor John Jeremiah Jacob in 1851. Presbyterian Reverend Joseph Nelson replaced Jacob in 1853 and purchased the institute in 1861. The Romney Literary Society and the Romney Classical Institute went on hiatus during the American Civil War. Nelson revived the school and was succeeded in 1866 by William C. Clayton, who later served in the West Virginia Senate; the institute was disestablished shortly thereafter. In 1870, the reorganized Romney Literary Society transferred the institute's building and grounds to the state of West Virginia for the approved West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. The schools opened on September 29, 1870, and are still in operation today. However, the former institute building was destroyed by fire on February 26, 2022. In addition to Jacob and Clayton, Robert White, Attorney General of West Virginia, was an alumnus of the institute. ## Background Prior to the establishment of the Romney Classical Institute in 1846, Romney and its environs had been served by a school as early as 1752 and by Romney Academy, which was incorporated by the Virginia General Assembly on January 11, 1814. By 1831, Romney Academy had outgrown its facilities in an old stone building just north of the Hampshire County Courthouse. Around this time, several academies in present-day West Virginia were aspiring to provide a college-level education, as there were few post-secondary institutions in the region prior to the American Civil War. To remedy this issue and improve educational opportunities for local children, the Romney Literary Society began an initiative to raise funds to construct a new school building. On January 6, 1832, the Virginia General Assembly authorized the society to raise $20,000 through a lottery. The society made arrangements with James Gregory of Jersey City and Daniel McIntyre of Philadelphia to finance the lottery, "for raising a sum of money not exceeding twenty thousand dollars, for the purpose of erecting a suitable building for their accommodation, the purchase of library and Philosophical apparatus." The lottery was conducted over a ten-year period, and sums of $750, $1,000, and $1,500 were to be raised in semiannual installments. ## Construction and establishment The Romney Literary Society raised the necessary funds by 1845. On April 4, 1845, the society solicited for contractor bids, which were submitted by May 24. On that date, the land was deeded for the new school. Construction began that year, and the building and its grounds cost approximately $8,000 to complete. According to an 1845 bid advertisement, the institute was planned as a brick building, 36 by 40 feet (11 by 12 m) and 22 feet (6.7 m) in height from the foundation. Plans also called for a tin roof to "be surmounted by a cupola." The bid advertisement also stated that the end of the building was to be the main façade, which was to be embellished with a "handsome portico the whole width of the house." The committee for the school building's construction, which consisted of E. M. Armstrong, John B. Kercheval, and David Gibson signed this advertisement. On December 12, 1846, the Virginia General Assembly further empowered the Romney Literary Society: "To establish at or near the town of Romney a Seminary of Learning for the instruction of youth in various branches of science and literature; and the Society may appropriate to the same such portion of the property which it now has or may acquire, as it may deem expedient." Following the passage of this act, the Romney Classical Institute was formally established. That same year, the new two-story brick educational building was completed and the society's library and classes were relocated there. The completed building measured 54 by 40 feet (16 by 12 m), with an additional wing that served as principal's residence. The society used the second story of the building, which was divided into two rooms: a hall for society meetings and a hall for its library. Only society members, Romney clergy, and the institute's principal were given library privileges; each were provided with keys to visit the library at any time. ## Growth From its foundation, the Romney Classical Institute was a coeducational collegiate preparatory school. The institute operated first under the principalship of Presbyterian minister the Reverend William Henry Foote, who had been a teacher and principal at Romney Academy. He served as the school's principal until 1849. Theology was one of the courses taught at the institute under Foote's leadership. In 1849, the Romney Literary Society established a new operating code for the institute, and a new system of bylaws for the governance of the school, which empowered the society to appoint teachers, fix salaries, and provide conditions of payment. Foote took this new code as a criticism of his leadership, and he resigned. In 1850, Foote founded a rival institution known as the Potomac Seminary. Foote raised the necessary funds and a brick building for the seminary was constructed approximately 902 feet (275 m) north of the institute building. The society selected Professor E. J. Meany to head the institute following Foote's departure. Meany's assistant principals were John Jeremiah Jacob, Mrs. Meany, and Miss Kern. Jacob had attended both the institute and its predecessor, Romney Academy, and later served as West Virginia's first Democratic governor. Meany remained principal of the institute until at least 1851. Following his graduation from Dickinson College in 1849, Jacob became the institute's assistant principal under Meany. He became the school's principal in 1851 and served in that position until 1853, during which time he taught classes and practiced law. Jacob was still serving as the school's principal in May 1853 when he placed an advertisement for the school's summer session in May 1853 in Romney's South Branch Intelligencer newspaper. While the school operated under the leadership of the Romney Literary Society, the institute established its own literary organization known as the Phrena Kosmian Society. On November 15, 1850, the Phrena Kosmian Society debated the question, "Would the Southern States be justified in seceding from the Confederacy under present circumstances?" There are no existing records of the debate's conclusion. Romney attorney Andrew Wodrow Kercheval delivered an address to the society on April 3, 1851, which was later printed at the office of the Virginia Argus and Hampshire Advertiser that year. In 1850, the Virginia House of Delegates amended the act of December 12, 1846, establishing the school, and empowered the governor of Virginia to appoint the institute's Board of Visitors. The following year on March 1, 1851, the Virginia House of Delegates rejected John Kern, Jr. and other Board of Visitors members' petition to amend the institute's charter. In 1853, the Romney Literary Society received an endowment of $20,000, and possessed a permanent fund of $12,000, which yielded $720 per year. Half of this yield was used to support the institute, including the purchase of textbooks. These figures remained the same in 1859. According to its May 1853 advertisement in the Virginia Argus and Hampshire Advertiser, the institute provided instruction to the following grades during its summer session: fifth grade for $5, fourth grade for $8, third grade for $10, second grade for $12, and first grade (its highest grade) for $15. Boarding, including laundry, meals, and lighting, was $45, and music lessons with use of the piano were $25. An additional fee of 25 cents was charged if a student was suspended. The institute's Primary Department taught the fifth grade, and lessons included spelling, reading and elementary arithmetic. The fourth grade was taught by the institute's Junior Department and included courses in writing and preparatory English grammar and geography. The English Department instructed the third grade and offered studies in geography and English; and the second grade was also taught by the English Department with courses in history and natural philosophy. First grade, the school's highest, was instructed by the Classical and Mathematical Department and offered studies in Greek, Latin, French, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, surveying, mensuration, navigation, astronomy, and bookkeeping. According to an advertisement for a female teacher in the Baltimore Sun on November 9, 1853, William C. Clayton was serving as the institute's principal by late 1853. Clayton stated in the advertisement that the institute was seeking an experienced female teacher to lead the school's Female Department. The candidate for the female teacher was to be qualified to teach French, English, and music. Later in 1853, Reverend Joseph Nelson became principal, and he continued to serve in this capacity, and preach in the school's chapel, until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. By spring 1857, the institute had a Male Department led by C. S. Hurt and a Female Department led by Mrs. M. R. Schenk, with Andrew Wodrow Kercheval serving as secretary pro tempore of its Board of Visitors. In December 1859, John Kern, Jr., was the secretary of the school's Board of Visitors, and the institute advertised the position of principal, and received applications until January 5, 1860. In the school's December 1859 advertisements in the Richmond Dispatch, the institute sought "a gentleman well qualified to teach the classics thoroughly, whose lady could teach French and music, would be preferred." At this point, the institute had 50 students. Nelson's replacement was expected to take charge by February 1860. Though Nelson had purportedly accepted a position in Mississippi, there are no records to indicate that he left his post prior to the American Civil War. By February 1861, Nelson had purchased the institute and its buildings from the Romney Literary Society, thus becoming its sole manager and proprietor as president. At this time, courses were offered during sessions lasting five months and the following fees were charged per grades: $16 for the Highest Grade, $12 for the Intermediate Grade, $8 for the Lowest Grade, $5 for Ancient Languages, and $5 for Modern Languages. ## Hiatus and final years The institute and the society both continued to grow in importance until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. After the war began, the institute's professors and older students joined the Confederate States Army and other Confederate partisan groups, and the institute and the society experienced a hiatus. The Romney Literary Society's library suffered significant losses during the war, and by the war's end in 1865, only about 400 volumes of its once large 3,000-volume library could be located. Many of the society's members never returned from the war, and those who did were too weary and discouraged at first to revive the society or the Romney Classical Institute. Following the war in August 1865, Nelson attempted to resurrect the institute and submitted an advertisement to the Civilian & Telegraph newspaper in Cumberland, Maryland, in which he billed the institute as "A Male and Female Boarding and Day School." The institute opened on the first Monday in September 1865 for its fall and winter session. According to Nelson's advertisement, "parents desiring for their children a sound English, Classical and Mathematical Education would do well to patronize this School." Student education was divided into three levels: the Lowest Grade level for $10 for a five-month session, Intermediate level for $15, and the Highest level for $20. Latin and Greek each cost an additional $5 per quarter. Boarding at the school cost $3 per week; however, laundry, fuel, and lighting were not included in this fee. Music lessons were also taught "at Professor's charges." In 1866, William C. Clayton became the institute's principal and presided over the school for a few more terms. Like his predecessor John Jeremiah Jacob, Clayton had been a student at both the Romney Academy and the institute. Clayton served in the West Virginia Senate following his tenure as principal. A Mr. Dinwiddie was also a teacher at the school after the war. Nelson relocated to Cumberland, where he was principal of Cumberland City Academy for five years. It is not known if he sold the institute. ## Disestablishment and legacy Despite the institute's effective disestablishment after 1866, a meeting was held on May 15, 1869, with nine original members of the Romney Literary Society: James Dillon Armstrong, David Entler, William Harper, John C. Heiskell, Andrew Wodrow Kercheval, Samuel R. Lupton, James Parsons, Alfred P. White, and Robert White. They set about expanding the society's membership rolls and reviving its library. Over the next few years, 20 younger members were added. By 1869, the state of West Virginia considered the establishment of a school for deaf and blind students. The newly reorganized Romney Literary Society sought to secure this school for Romney as part of its Reconstruction development efforts. On March 3, 1870, the West Virginia Legislature passed an act providing for the establishment of the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind. The society passed a resolution on April 12, 1870, by which it agreed to deed, free of cost, the institute's building and grounds to the state for the planned schools. On April 20, 1870, the society sent its members Robert White and Andrew Wodrow Kercheval to the then-state capital of Wheeling to offer "the grounds and buildings of the Romney Classical Institute... to the Board of Regents, free of debt, and in good repair" on the condition that the proposed institution be located at Romney. At the time of the society's offer, the institute's grounds consisted of 15 acres (61,000 m²). Offers for campus locations were also made by citizens of Clarksburg and Parkersburg. The society's offer was the only one to include an extant building on its grounds. The Board of Regents accepted the society's offer, and a formal transfer of the Romney Classical Institute campus was made. During this process, the society discovered additional repairs were needed in order to satisfy the state's requirements. The society had to raise over $1,000 to adequately address these repairs, which was a difficult task during the economically distressed Reconstruction Era. Following a resolution on July 11, 1870, to raise between $1,200 and $1,300, a subscription of $1,383.60 was raised after 118 individuals and firms donated the needed funds. Shortly thereafter, the property's formal transfer was completed. The institute's property was valued at about $20,000 at this time. The West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind opened on September 29, 1870, in the former Romney Classical Institute building, which provided space for administration offices, classrooms, and dormitories. Following the schools' subsequent expansions, the institute's former building became the center section of the administration building of the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, which it remains as of 2018. Between 1871 and 1872, the schools added two wings to the old institute building, each measuring 70 by 30 feet (21.3 by 9.1 m). The historic administration building was destroyed by fire on the morning of February 26, 2022. Following the transfer of the institute's campus, the Romney Literary Society built a new building between 1869 and 1870, which became known as Literary Hall. ## Alumni The Romney Classical Institute educated several prominent educators, lawyers, military officers, politicians, and physicians. In West Virginia and Its People (1913), historians Thomas Condit Miller and Hu Maxwell averred that the Romney Classical Institute "exerted a great influence upon the educational work of the South Branch Valley." As stated above, John Jeremiah Jacob was educated at the institute and served as its assistant principal and principal. He was later elected West Virginia's first Democratic governor. West Virginia state senator William C. Clayton also attended the school and served as its principal. Craig Woodrow McDonald, son of Angus William McDonald, attended the school in its early years of operation. Following his education there, he attended the Virginia Military Institute and the University of Virginia, then taught school in Culpeper County. During the American Civil War, McDonald served in the Confederate States Army as aide-de-camp to General Arnold Elzey and was killed in battle on May 29, 1862. Robert White attended the institute prior to serving as a law apprentice under his father John Baker White, Hampshire County Clerk of Court, and attending Lexington Law School. White later served as Attorney General of West Virginia. Prominent Western Maryland physician Dr. Bayard T. Keller received his primary education at Romney Classical Institute and afterward continued his studies at Allegany County Academy in Cumberland, the University of Maryland, and the Baltimore Infirmary and practiced medicine in nearby Grantsville and Oakland.

# French ironclad Hoche Hoche was an ironclad battleship built as a hybrid barbette–turret ship for the French Navy in the 1880s. Originally designed in response to very large Italian ironclads along the lines of the French Amiral Baudin class, by the time work on Hoche began, changes in French design philosophy led to a radical re-design that provided the basis for a generation of French capital ships. Her armament was reduced in size compared to the Amiral Baudins, and was placed in the lozenge arrangement that would be used for most French capital ships into the 1890s. Hoche suffered from serious stability problems that resulted from her large superstructure and low freeboard, which required extensive work later in her career to correct. The ship incorporated new technologies for the French Navy, including gun turrets for some of her main battery guns and compound armor plate. Hoche initially served with the Northern Squadron after entering service in 1890, but was sent to the Mediterranean Squadron the following year. She remained there for the next four years, during which time she accidentally rammed and sank a merchant vessel outside Marseilles. In 1895, she was moved back to the Northern Squadron, and that year she visited Germany for the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. The ship remained in the unit until 1898, when she was decommissioned to be thoroughly reconstructed. Work was completed in 1901, and she served briefly with the Northern Squadron that year before being transferred to the Reserve Division of the Mediterranean Squadron in 1902. She spent the next several years in a state with reduced crews, being activated to take part in training exercises with the rest of the fleet. She remained assigned to the Reserve Division through 1908, but saw no further service; she was ultimately sunk as a target ship in 1913. ## Design In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the French Navy embarked on a construction program to strengthen the fleet in 1872. By that time, the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) had begun its own expansion program under the direction of Benedetto Brin, which included the construction of several very large ironclad warships of the Duilio and Italia classes, armed with 450 mm (17.7 in) 100-ton guns. The French initially viewed the ships as not worthy of concern, though by 1877, public pressure over the new Italian vessels prompted the Navy's Conseil des Travaux (Board of Construction) to design a response, beginning with the barbette ship Amiral Duperré and following with six vessels carrying 100-ton guns of French design. The first of these were the two Amiral Baudin-class ironclads, which carried their guns in open barbettes, all on the centerline, with one forward and two aft. Problems aboard other vessels with new 76-ton guns prompted the naval command to abandon the as-yet untested 100-ton weapons. A modified version of the 76-ton gun with a longer barrel and that had been adapted to use new propellant charges was developed; these changes gave it higher muzzle velocity, which allowed its shells to penetrate as well as the 100-ton gun had been expected to perform. The Amiral Baudins were too advanced in their construction to allow their design to be revised, but the other four vessels of the program, which became Hoche and the three Marceau-class ironclads, had not yet begun building. Their design, which was prepared by the naval engineer Charles Ernest Huin, was radically altered from the Amiral Baudin arrangement to what would become the standard for future French capital ships for the next two decades. The large caliber guns were increased to four, one forward, one aft, and a wing mount on either side amidships to maximize end-on fire (which was emphasized by those who favored ramming attacks). By the time the design for these new ships was being finalized in early 1880, very large guns had fallen out of favor in the French Navy, so new 52-ton guns were substituted. The Navy had intended to build all four vessels to the same design, but after work began on Hoche in June 1880, the shipyard realized that Huin's design was unworkable; the proposed hull dimensions were insufficient for the weight of armament to be carried. The shipyard engineers proposed widening the beam and increasing displacement to correct the problem, but Hoche was too far advanced in construction to allow the necessary changes without breaking up the existing hull structure. The other three ships, which became the Marceaus, had not been laid down and could be modified, and they retained the barbettes of the earlier ships. Since it was deemed cost prohibitive to rework Hoche's hull, other changes would have to be made. Her revised design was approved on 31 January 1881, with a slightly longer hull and a revised armament. Lighter 28-ton guns were substituted for her wing barbettes. Later, on 17 August 1882, the Navy requested that fully-armored gun turrets be used for her centerline guns; this made Hoche the first French capital ship to use armored turrets. Huin accepted this change, but the additional weight of the turrets forced the hull to be lowered by a deck to retain sufficient stability. ### Characteristics Hoche was 102.59 m (336 ft 7 in) long at the waterline, with a beam of 20.22 m (66 ft 4 in) and a draft of 8.31 m (27 ft 3 in). She displaced 10,820 long tons (10,990 t). The ship had a low freeboard and a very large superstructure that rendered her very top-heavy and as a result unstable. Her superstructure was so large that she was nicknamed "le Grand Hôtel". The problem was compounded by the fact that she was overweight on completion, which further reduced her freeboard. Her forward and aft conning towers included bridges that were cantilevered over the main battery turrets. The hull featured a pronounced ram bow. She was fitted with a pair of heavy military masts equipped with fighting tops that carried some of her light guns and were also used to spot for her main battery guns. Steering was controlled by a single large rudder. The crew consisted of 611 officers and enlisted men. Her propulsion machinery consisted of two vertical compound steam engines that each drove a single screw propeller. Steam for the engines was provided by eight coal-burning fire-tube boilers that were ducted into a single wide funnel that were placed directly astern of the conning tower. Her engines were rated to produce 12,000 indicated horsepower (8,900 kW) for a top speed of 16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph). Coal storage amounted to 590 to 740 long tons (600 to 750 t). Her cruising radius was 610 nautical miles (1,130 km; 700 mi), though the speed that enabled that range is unknown. Her main armament consisted of two 340 mm (13 in) Modèle 1881 guns and 274 mm (10.8 in) Modèle 1881 guns, both of which were 28-caliber weapons. They were all mounted in individual barbette mounts, with the 340 mm guns on the centerline, forward and aft, and the 274 mm guns in wing mounts amidships. The 340 mm guns fired 350 kg (770 lb) high-explosive shells filled with melinite with a muzzle velocity of 555 m/s (1,820 ft/s). The 274 mm guns fired 216 kg (476 lb) shells at a velocity of 600 m/s (2,000 ft/s). These guns were supported by a secondary battery of eighteen 138 mm (5.4 in) guns, all carried in individual pivot mounts. Fourteen of the guns were placed in a gun battery in the hull, seven guns per broadside, and the remaining four were located at the four corners of the superstructure. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried ten 47 mm (1.9 in) 3-pounder guns and ten 37 mm (1.5 in) 1-pounder Hotchkiss revolvers, all in individual mounts. These were placed in a variety of locations, including in the fighting tops, in a small battery directly above the wing barbettes, and elsewhere in the superstructure. Her armament was rounded out with five 380 mm (15 in) torpedo tubes in above-water mounts. Two were placed on each broadside and the last was in the stern. Hoche was protected with compound armor; she was the first French capital ship to use the new type of armor. Her armor belt covered the entire length of the hull, and the central portion that protected her vitals—the propulsion machinery spaces and ammunition magazines—was 457 mm (18 in). The central portion was 0.61 m (2 ft) above the waterline and 1.7 m (5.5 ft) below, though it tapered to 356 mm (14 in) at the bottom edge. But because of her overloaded condition, her belt was almost entirely submerged, significantly reducing its effectiveness. The bow section was 254 mm (10 in), while the stern section of the hull was 305 mm (12 in) thick. Above the belt was a strake of 81 mm (3.2 in). She had an armor deck that consisted of 79 mm (3.1 in) of wrought iron on a layer of 20 mm (0.8 in) of mild steel; the armor deck was connected to the main belt armor just below the top edge. The main battery turrets and barbettes were 406 mm (16 in) thick, while the supporting tubes that connected them to their magazines consisted of 240 mm (9 in) of wrought iron. The conning tower had 64 mm (2.5 in) sides. ### Modifications The ship was modified several times over the course of her career to correct her stability deficiencies. Six of her 138 mm guns were removed by 1895 in an effort to lighten her superstructure. In 1898, Hoche underwent a more thorough reconstruction to remedy her instability and upgrade her armament and propulsion system. Her superstructure was reduced significantly to lower her center of mass. The old compound engines were replaced with vertical triple-expansion steam engines and sixteen coal-fired, water-tube Belleville boilers were installed in place of her original fire-tube boilers. Her original 138 mm guns were removed and twelve 138 mm Modèle 1893 guns were added. Eight of these were placed in the battery, four per broadside, and the other four were placed in the upper deck mounts above the wing barbettes. Four 9-pounder guns were added to supplement the anti-torpedo boat defense. Two of her torpedo tubes were also removed. These alterations reduced her displacement to 10,580 long tons (10,750 t) at full load. The reduction in weight restored her intended waterline and kept the side armor above the water. Her cruising range was increased to 1,292 nmi (2,393 km; 1,487 mi). ## Service history ### Construction – 1901 Hoche was ordered on 3 August 1880, and her keel was laid down in August 1881 in Lorient. She was launched on 29 September 1886. Fitting-out work was completed by mid-1889; installation of her engines lasted from 15 September 1888 to 8 July 1889. She was placed in limited commission for sea trials on 15 July, though her trials crew was not fully assembled until 4 February 1890. She was moved to Brest three days later, but the start of her examination was delayed until July. Her initial inspection and working up period lasted until January 1891, and she was placed in full commission on the 12th. During the lengthy trials period, she was assigned to the Northern Squadron, based in the English Channel. She served as the flagship of the unit, at that time commanded by Admiral Alfred Gervais. She got underway on 21 February 1891 for Toulon, where she joined the Mediterranean Squadron, where she conducted sea trials. During the fleet maneuvers of 1891, which began on 23 June, Hoche was assigned to the 2nd Division, 1st Squadron along with the ironclads Redoutable and Amiral Baudin. The maneuvers lasted until 11 July. On 7 July 1892, Hoche accidentally collided with the mail steamer SS Maréchal Canrobert as the two vessels were passing through the roadstead outside Marseilles, striking her with her ram amidships and nearly cutting the steamer in half. The latter's captain tied Maréchal Canrobert to Hoche to allow his passengers and crew to come aboard Hoche. After they were successfully evacuated, he cut the line connecting the ships and Maréchal Canrobert quickly foundered. The ship remained in service with the Mediterranean Squadron in 1892, which by that time had been joined by the three Marceau-class ironclads. She participated in the 1893 maneuvers, again as part of the 2nd Division in company with the ironclad Amiral Duperré and Amiral Baudin; that year, she served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Le Bourgeois. The maneuvers included an initial period of exercises from 1 to 10 July and then larger-scale maneuvers from 17 to 28 July. Hoche was transferred back to the Northern Squadron in 1895, by which time the coastal defense ironclads Bouvines, Amiral-Tréhouart, Jemmapes, and Valmy, along with the armored cruiser Dupuy de Lôme. That year, she and Dupuy de Lôme traveled to Kiel, Germany, to represent France at the opening ceremonies for the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal on 20 June. She remained in the Northern Squadron through the following year. During the maneuvers held in 1896, Hoche served as the flagship of Vice Admiral Rognault de Premesnil. The exercises were held from 6 to 26 July, beginning with drills for the crews and concluding with a simulated battle between a squadron led by Hoche against an "enemy" unit that was to raid the French coast and escape, which it succeeded in doing. Hoche again participated in the large-scale maneuvers of 1897, which were held in July. Hoche and the bulk of the squadron were tasked with intercepting Bouvines, which was to steam from Cherbourg to Brest between 15 and 16 July. As with the previous year's maneuvers, the defending squadron was unable to intercept Bouvines before she reached Brest. The squadron then moved to Quiberon Bay for another round of maneuvers from 18 to 21 July. This scenario saw the protected cruisers Sfax and Tage simulate a hostile fleet steaming from the Mediterranean Sea to attack France's Atlantic coast. Unlike previous exercises, Hoche and the rest of the Northern Squadron successfully intercepted the cruisers and "defeated" them. In early 1898, Hoche struck an uncharted rock in Quiberon Bay, which caused extensive damage to her hull. Because of the significant repair work, the navy decided to place the ship in reserve and modernize her boilers, which had already been authorized in the 1898 budget, but had not yet been scheduled. As a result, her place in the squadron was taken by the new pre-dreadnought battleship Masséna, which had entered service in June 1898. Repairs were completed at Brest by August, after which Hoche moved to Cherbourg to have her new boilers installed, along with other modifications. Work was completed by August 1901, when Hoche conducted sea trials before returning to service. ### 1901–1913 After returning to active duty in 1901, Hoche once again joined the Northern Squadron. By that time, the squadron also included Masséna, the pre-dreadnought Carnot, and the ironclads Amiral Baudin, Formidable, and Courbet. During the fleet maneuvers that year, the Northern Squadron steamed south for joint maneuvers with the Mediterranean Squadron. The Northern Squadron ships formed part of the hostile force, and as it was entering the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, represented a German squadron attempting to meet its Italian allies. The exercises began on 3 July and concluded on 28 July. In August and September, the Northern Squadron conducted amphibious assault exercises. On 28 August, they escorted a group of troop ships from Brest to La Rochelle. The ships conducted a simulated bombardment of the port, neutralized the coastal defenses, and put some 6,000 men ashore. The next year, Hoche, Carnot, and Amiral Baudin were transferred to the Reserve Division in the Mediterranean Squadron. The ships in the Reserve Division were kept in a state of readiness with reduced crews that could be completed with naval reservists for the annual fleet exercises (or in the event of war). Hoche and the rest of the Reserve Division participated in the 1902 fleet maneuvers, which occurred in three phases. The first lasted from 7 to 10 July, the second from 15 to 24 July, and the third from 28 July to 4 August. She remained in the unit through 1903, which by then included Carnot and the pre-dreadnoughts Brennus and Charles Martel. With several new battleships entering serving in 1903 and 1904, Hoche was reduced to 2nd category reserve in 1904. She returned to the Reserve Division in 1905, and remained there through the following year. She took part in the fleet maneuvers that year, which began on 6 July with the concentration of the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons in Algiers. The maneuvers were conducted in the western Mediterranean, alternating between ports in French North Africa and Toulon and Marseilles, France, and concluding on 4 August. She was present for a major naval review held off Marseilles on 16 September that included British, Spanish, and Italian vessels. The ship was thereafter reduced to the 2nd category reserve. She was reactivated for service in the Reserve Division later that year, taking part in the fleet maneuvers in July. She remained in the unit in 1908 along with four pre-dreadnoughts. Hoche was ultimately expended as a target ship and, while towed at 6 knots by the cruiser Jules Michelet, she was sunk on 2 December 1913 south of Toulon by practice fire from the pre-dreadnought Jauréguiberry and the cruiser Pothuau, both equipped with experimental fire-control systems developed by Yves Le Prieur.

# Sol de Mañana Sol de Mañana is an area with geothermal manifestations in southern Bolivia, including fumaroles, hot springs and mud pools. It lies at about 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) elevation, south of Laguna Colorada and east of El Tatio geothermal field. The field is located within the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and is an important tourism attraction on the road between Uyuni and Antofagasta. The field has been prospected as a possible geothermal power production site, with research beginning in the 1970s and after a pause recommencing in 2010. Development is ongoing as of 2023. ## Description Sol de Mañana lies in the San Pablo de Lipez municipality (Sud Lipez Province), in a remote and uninhabited region of Bolivia. In an area of 10 square kilometres (3.9 sq mi) there are steam vents, mud pools, hot springs, geysers and fumaroles. Apart from Sol de Mañana proper there are additional geothermal manifestations dispersed a few kilometres south-southwest at Apacheta and 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from Sol de Mañana; north-northwest at Huayllajara; The first two feature hydrothermally altered rocks and sometimes they are considered to be separate geothermal fields. Steam/water emissions can under exceptional circumstances reach heights of 200 metres (660 ft). Gas vents release sulfur-containing gases. The temperatures of the springs reach 30 °C (86 °F) and the fumaroles 70 °C (158 °F), hot enough to be visible from space in ASTER images. Seismic swarms and earthquakes have been recorded in the field. Sol de Mañana lies at about 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) elevation, making it among the highest geothermal fields in the world. The nearest major communities are Quetena Grande and Quetena Chico in Bolivia, 75 kilometres (47 mi) northeast from Sol de Mañana, and the field can be accessed through unpaved roads from Uyuni, 340 kilometres (210 mi) away. 30 kilometres (19 mi) across the frontier, in Chile, lies El Tatio, the best-known geothermal manifestation in the Central Andes. There are numerous volcanoes in the area, including Tocorpuri west-southwest and Putana and Escalante southwest of Sol de Mañana, and the Pastos Grandes and Cerro Guacha caldera systems. The field lies 40 kilometres (25 mi)-20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Laguna Colorada, which can be reached from Sol de Mañana. There are mines at Cerro Aguita Blanca, a few kilometres south of Sol de Mañana, and at Cerro Apacheta about five kilometres west-southwest; the latter can be reached through another road from Sol de Mañana. ## Geology Off the western coast of South America, the Nazca Plate subducts beneath the South American Plate. The subduction is responsible for the volcanism of the Andes. The growth of the Altiplano high plateau commenced 25 million years ago before shifting eastward 12-6 million years ago. The Andean Central Volcanic Zone is one of four belts of volcanoes in the Andes. Volcanic activity began 23 million years ago and involved the emplacement of a series of ignimbrites, which form one of the largest ignimbrite plateaus of the world. Numerous younger stratovolcanoes grew on top of the ignimbrites; there are about 150 separate volcanic centres. The Altiplano volcanoes form the Altiplano-Puna volcanic complex, which is underpinned by the Altiplano-Puna Magma Body. The dry climate leads to an exceptional preservation of the volcanic landforms. About 50 volcanoes in the Central Andes (Bolivia, northern Chile, northern Argentina) were active during the Holocene. ### Local Sol de Mañana is part of the Laguna Colorada geothermal area/caldera complex (the names are sometimes used interchangeably). The area features Miocene-Pleistocene volcanic rocks (dacite forming ignimbrites, lavas and tuffs) emplaced on top of Cenozoic marine sediments. Alluvial deposits and moraines occur in the area. There are various north-south and northwest–southeast trending tectonic lineaments in the region, associated with rock deformation. At Sol de Mañana there are a number of faults, including normal faults active during the Holocene, which constitute pathways for the ascent of hot water. The most important faults at the field trend north-northwest-south-southeast. Glacial erosion has taken place in the area during the past, which has left moraines east and north-northwest of Sol de Mañana. Drill cores have identified several rock units under Sol de Mañana, including several layers of dacitic ignimbrites with ages of about 5-1.2 million years and andesitic lavas. Hydrothermal alteration has taken place throughout the layers, forming from top to bottom layers rich clays, silica and epidote; each of these layers is several hundred metres thick. Basement rocks were not encountered. This stratigraphy is similar to that at El Tatio, across the border in Chile. The geothermal heat reservoir appears to be located within the ignimbrites and andesites. The heat may originate either in the Altiplano-Puna Magma Body or in the volcanic arc. It is transported upward through convection, forming two heat reservoirs underground that are capped by a clay layer. Precipitation water reaches the reservoirs through deep faults, which also allow heat circulation. Drilling has shown that the reservoirs have temperatures of about 250–260 °C (482–500 °F). The Sol de Mañana geothermal system may be physically connected to El Tatio, with Sol de Mañana being closer to the heat source and Tatio an outflow at lower elevation. ## Climate and ecosystem There is a weather station on Sol de Mañana. Mean annual precipitation is about 75 millimetres (3.0 in) and mean temperatures are about 8.9 °C (48.0 °F). The geothermal field is part of the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and one of the main tourism attractions on the Uyuni-Antofagasta road. ## Geothermal power generation The 1973 oil crisis created the impetus for increased investigation of Bolivia's geothermal power resources, focusing on the Altiplano and the surrounding Andean ranges. Prospecting by the National Electricity Company and the state agency for geology identified Sajama, Salar de Empexa and Laguna Colorada as the most suitable areas for geothermal power generation. A geothermal project began in 1978 and numerous drilling operations were undertaken in the following years; however development ceased in 1993 as the legal and political circumstances were unfavourable. A renewed effort began in 2010, spearheaded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, during which additional cores were drilled, but as of 2023 is still at its early stages and as of 2016 is only used as process heat for the San Cristobal mine. An electrical power potential of about 50–100 megawatts (67,000–134,000 hp) has been estimated. Laguna Colorada/Sol de Mañana are the main focus of geothermal power prospecting in Bolivia; other sites have drawn scarce interest. As of 2016 Bolivia did not have any legislation specific for geothermal power generation. Geothermal power development is also hindered by the remote location, which would require building large power transmission networks, and the low price of electricity in the country.

# Maya stelae Maya stelae (singular stela) are monuments that were fashioned by the Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. They consist of tall, sculpted stone shafts and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered a hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala. During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre. Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by the Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic (c. 900–1521). The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city, at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved. Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in the Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text. Stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná. Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours. Stelae were essentially stone banners raised to glorify the king and record his deeds, although the earliest examples depict mythological scenes. Imagery developed throughout the Classic Period, with Early Classic stelae (c. 250–600) displaying non-Maya characteristics from the 4th century onwards, with the introduction of imagery linked to the central Mexican metropolis of Teotihuacan. This influence receded in the 5th century although some minor Teotihuacan references continued to be used. In the late 5th century, Maya kings began to use stelae to mark the end of calendrical cycles. In the Late Classic (c. 600–900), imagery linked to the Mesoamerican ballgame was introduced, once again displaying influence from central Mexico. By the Terminal Classic, the institution of divine kingship declined, and Maya kings began to be depicted with their subordinate lords. As the Classic Period came to an end, stelae ceased to be erected, with the last known examples being raised in 909–910. ## Function The function of the Maya stela was central to the ideology of Maya kingship from the very beginning of the Classic Period through to the very end of the Terminal Classic (800–900). The hieroglyphic inscriptions on the stelae of the Classic period site of Piedras Negras played a key part in the decipherment of the script, with stelae being grouped around seven different structures and each group appearing to chart the life of a particular individual, with key dates being celebrated, such as birth, marriage and military victories. From these stelae, epigrapher Tatiana Proskouriakoff was able to identify that they contained details of royal rulers and their associates, rather than priests and gods as had previously been theorised. Epigrapher David Stuart first proposed that the Maya regarded their stelae as te tun, "stone trees", although he later revised his reading to lakamtun, meaning "banner stone", from lakam meaning "banner" in several Mayan languages and tun meaning "stone". According to Stuart this may refer to the stelae as stone versions of vertical standards that once stood in prominent places in Maya city centres, as depicted in ancient Maya graffiti. The name of the modern Lacandon Maya is likely to be a Colonial corruption of this word. Maya stelae were often arranged to impress the viewer, forming lines or other arrangements within the ceremonial centre of the city. Maya cities with a history of stonecarving that extended back into the Early Classic preferred to pair their stelae with a circular altar, which may have represented a cut tree trunk and have been used to perform human sacrifice, given the prevalence of sacrificial imagery on such monuments. An alternative interpretation of these "altars" is that they were in fact thrones that were used by rulers during ceremonial events. Archaeologists believe that they probably also served as ritual pedestals for incense burners, ceremonial fires and other offerings. The core purpose of a stela was to glorify the king. Many Maya stelae depict only the king of the city, and describe his actions with hieroglyphic script. Even when the individual depicted is not the king himself, the text or scene usually relates the subject to the king. Openly declaring the importance and power of the king to the community, the stela portrayed his wealth, prestige and ancestry, and depicted him wielding the symbols of military and divine power. Stelae were raised to commemorate important events, especially at the end of a k'atun 20-year cycle of the Maya calendar, or to mark a quarter or a half k'atun. The stela did not just mark off a period of time; it has been argued that it physically embodied that period of time. The hieroglyphic texts on the stelae describe how some of the calendrical ceremonies required the king to perform ritual dance and bloodletting. At Tikal, the twin pyramid groups were built to celebrate the k'atun ending and reflected Maya cosmology. These groups possessed pyramids on the east and west sides that represented the birth and death of the sun. On the south side, a nine-doored building was situated in order to represent the underworld. On the north side was a walled enclosure that represented the celestial region; it was left open to the sky. It was in this celestial enclosure that a stela-altar pair was placed, the altar being a fitting throne for the divine king. Calakmul practised a tradition that was unusual in the Maya area, that of raising twin stelae depicting both the king and his wife. The iconography of stelae remained reasonably stable during the Classic Period, since the effectiveness of the propaganda message of the monument relied upon its symbolism being clearly recognisable to the viewer. However, at times a shift in the sociopolitical climate induced a change in iconography. Stelae were an ideal format for public propaganda since, unlike earlier architectural sculpture, they were personalised to a specific king, could be arranged in public spaces and were portable, allowing them to be moved and reset in a new location. An important feature of stelae was that they were able to survive different phases of architectural construction, unlike architectural sculpture itself. With the ability to portray an identifiable ruler bearing elite goods, accompanied by hieroglyphic text and carrying out actions in service of the kingdom, stelae became one of the most effective ways of delivering public propaganda in the Maya lowlands. In 7th-century Copán, king Chan Imix K'awiil raised a series of seven stelae that marked the boundary of the most fertile land in the Copán valley, an area of approximately 25 to 30 square kilometres (9.7 to 11.6 sq mi). As well as marking the boundary, they defined the sacred geometry of the city and referred to important seats of deities in the ceremonial centre of the Copán. ### Ritual significance Stelae were considered to be invested with holiness and, perhaps, even to contain a divine soul-like essence that almost made them living beings. Some were apparently given individual names in hieroglyphic texts and were considered to be participants in rituals conducted at their location. Such rituals in the Classic Period appear to have included a k'altun binding ritual, in which the stela was wrapped in bands of tied cloth. This ritual was closely tied to the k'atun-ending calendrical ceremony. A k'altun ritual is depicted carved onto a peccary skull deposited as a funerary offering at Copán, the scene shows two nobles flanking a stela-altar pair where the stela seems to have been bound with cloth. The act of wrapping or binding a sacred object was of considerable religious importance across Mesoamerica, and is well attested among the Maya right up to the present day. The precise meaning of the act is not clear, but may be to protect the bound object or to contain its sacred essence. The binding of stelae may be linked to the modern K'iche' Maya practice of wrapping small divinatory stones in a bundle. A stela was not just considered a neutral portrait, it was considered to be 'owned' by the subject, whether that subject was a person or a god. Stela 3 from El Zapote in Guatemala is a small monument dating from the Early Classic period, the front of the stela bears a portrait of the rain god Yaxhal Chaak, "Clear Water Chaak". The accompanying text describes how the deity Yaxhal Chaak himself was dedicated, not just his image on the stela. This could be taken to imply that the stela was seen as the embodiment of the deity and is also true of those stelae bearing royal portraits, which were seen to be the supernatural embodiment of the ruler they represented. The stela, combined with any accompanying altar, was a perpetual enactment of royal ceremony in stone. David Stuart has stated that stelae "do not simply commemorate past events and royal ceremonies but serve to perpetuate the ritual act into eternity", thus ascribing a magical effectiveness to stela depictions. In the same vein, stelae bearing royal portraits may have been magically loaded extensions of the royal person (uba 'his self'), extremely powerful confirmations of political and religious authority. Stelae bearing images of multiple people, for instance of several nobles performing a ritual or of a king with his war captives, were likely to be exceptions to this idea of the stela as sacred embodiment of the subject. At times, when a new king came to power, old stelae would be respectfully buried and replaced with new ones, or they might be broken. When a Maya city was invaded by a rival, it was pillaged by the victors. One of the most striking archaeological markers of such an invasion is the destruction of the defeated city's stelae, which were broken and cast down. At the end of the Preclassic, around 150 AD, this fate appears to have befallen the important city of El Mirador, where most of the stelae were found smashed. ## Manufacture Royal artisans were sometimes responsible for sculpting stelae; in some cases these sculptors were actually the sons of kings. In other cases it is likely that captive artisans from defeated cities were put to work raising stelae for the victors, as evidenced by the sculptural style of one city appearing upon monuments of its conqueror soon after its defeat. This appears to have been the case in Piedras Negras where Stela 12 depicting war captives submitting to the victorious king is carved in the style of Pomoná, the defeated city. Archaeologists believe that this may also have been the case with Quiriguá after its surprise defeat of its overlord Copán. Stelae were usually crafted from quarried limestone, although in the Southern Maya area other types of stone were preferred. Volcanic tuff was used at Copán to craft their stelae in three dimensions. Both limestone and tuff were easily worked when first quarried and hardened with exposure to the elements. At Quiriguá a hard red sandstone was used that was unable to reproduce the three-dimensionality of Copán but was of sufficient strength that the kings of the city were able to raise the tallest free-standing stone monuments in the Americas. The Maya lacked beasts of burden and did not employ the wheel; therefore the freshly quarried blocks of stone had to be transported on rollers along the Maya causeways. Evidence of this has been found on the causeways themselves, where rollers have been recovered. The blocks were sculpted to their final form while still soft and they then hardened naturally with time. Stone was usually quarried locally but was occasionally transported over great distances. Calakmul in Mexico was one of two powerful cities that shaped the political landscape of the Classic Period, the other being Tikal. It imported black slate for one stela from the Maya Mountains, more than 320 kilometres (200 mi) away. Although Calakmul raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city, they were sculpted from poor quality limestone and have suffered severe erosion, rendering most of them illegible. Stelae could be of substantial size; Quiriguá Stela E measures 10.6 metres (35 ft) from the base to the top, including the 3-metre (9.8 ft) buried portion holding it in place. This particular monument has a claim to being the largest free-standing stone monument in the New World and weighs about 59 tonnes (65 short tons). Stela 1 at Ixkun is one of the tallest monuments in the Petén Basin, measuring 4.13 metres (13.5 ft) high, not including the buried portion, and is roughly 2 metres (6.6 ft) wide and 0.39 metres (1.3 ft) thick. Maya stelae were worked with stone chisels and probably with wooden mallets. Hammerstones were fashioned from flint and basalt and were used for shaping the softer rocks used to make stelae, while fine detail was completed with smaller chisels. Originally most were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours using mineral and organic pigments. At Copán and some other Maya cities, some traces of these pigments were found upon the monuments. Generally all sides of a stela were sculpted with human figures and hieroglyphic text, with each side forming a part of a single composition. Undecorated stelae in the form of plain slabs or columns of stone are found throughout the Maya region. These appear never to have been painted or to have been decorated with overlaid stucco sculpture. ## History ### Preclassic origins The Maya sculptural tradition that produced the stelae emerged fully formed and had probably been preceded by sculpted wooden monuments. However the tradition of raising stelae had its origin elsewhere in Mesoamerica, among the Olmecs of the Gulf Coast of Mexico. In the Late Preclassic it then spread into the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and southwards along the Pacific Coast to sites such as Chiapa de Corzo, Izapa and Takalik Abaj where Mesoamerican Long Count calendar dates began to be carved onto the stelae. Although at Izapa the stelae depicted mythological scenes, at Takalik Abaj they began to show rulers in Early Classic Maya posture accompanied by calendrical dates and hieroglyphic texts. It was also at Takalik Abaj and Izapa that these stelae began to be paired with circular altars. By approximately 400 BC, near the end of the Middle Preclassic Period, early Maya rulers were raising stelae that celebrated their achievements and validated their right to rule. At El Portón in the Salamá Valley of highland Guatemala a carved schist stela (Monument 1) was erected, the badly eroded hieroglyphs appear to be a very early form of Maya writing and may even be the earliest known example of Maya script. It was associated with a plain altar in a typical stela-altar pairing that would become common across the Maya area. Stela 11 from Kaminaljuyu, a major Preclassic highland city, dates to the Middle Preclassic and is the earliest stela to depict a standing ruler. The sculpted Preclassic stelae from Kaminaljuyu and other cities in the region, such as Chalchuapa in El Salvador and Chocolá in the Pacific lowlands, tend to depict political succession, sacrifice and warfare. These early stelae depicted rulers as warriors or wearing the masks and headdresses of Maya deities, accompanied by texts that recorded dates and achievements during their reigns, as well as recording their relationships with their ancestors. Stelae came to be displayed in large ceremonial plazas designed to display these monuments to maximum effect. The raising of stelae spread from the Pacific Coast and adjacent highlands throughout the Maya area. The development of Maya stelae coincides with the development of divine kingship among the Classic Maya. In the southern Maya area, the Late Preclassic stelae impressed upon the viewer the achievements of the king and his right to rule, thus reinforcing both his political and religious power. At the Middle Preclassic city of Nakbe in the central lowlands, Maya sculptors were producing some of the earliest lowland Maya stelae, depicting richly dressed individuals. Nakbe Stela 1 has been dated to around 400 BC. It was broken into pieces, but originally represented two elaborately dressed figures facing each other, and perhaps represents the transference of power from one ruler to his successor, however it also has features that recall the myth of the Maya Hero Twins, and would be the earliest known presentation of them. Around 200 BC the enormous nearby city of El Mirador had started to erect stela-like monuments, bearing inscriptions that appear to be glyphs but that are so far unreadable. Stela dating to the Late Preclassic period are also known from the sites of El Tintal, Cival, and San Bartolo in Guatemala, and Actuncan and Cahal Pech in Belize. On the Pacific Coast El Baúl Stela 1 features a date in its hieroglyphic text that equates to 36 AD. It depicts a ruler bearing a sceptre or a spear with a double column of hieroglyphic text before him. At Takalik Abaj are two stelae (Stela 2 and Stela 5) depicting the transfer of power from one ruler to another; they both show two elaborately dressed figures facing each other with a column of hieroglyphic text between them. The Long Count date on Stela 2 dates it to the 1st century BC at the latest, while Stela 5 has two dates, the latest of which is 126 AD. The stela was associated with the burial of a human sacrifice and other offerings. Stela 13 at Takalik Abaj also dates to the Late Preclassic; a massive offering of more than 600 ceramic vessels was found at its base, together with 33 obsidian prismatic blades and other artefacts. Both the stela and the offering were associated with a nearby Late Preclassic royal tomb. At Cuello in Belize, a plain stela was raised around 100 AD in an open plaza. At the very end of the Preclassic Period, around 100–300 AD, cities in the highlands and along the Pacific Coast ceased to raise sculpted stelae bearing hieroglyphic texts. This cessation in the production of stelae was the most dramatic symptom of a general decline in the region at this time. This decline has been linked to the intrusion of peoples from the western highlands combined with the disastrous eruption of the Ilopango Volcano that severely affected the entire region. ### Early Classic In the central Petén lowlands, the rise of individual rule at cities like Tikal required the development of new forms of public imagery. Preclassic imagery had involved largely anonymous, impersonal sculpture as an architectural element. The existing Preclassic Petén styles of architectural sculpture were combined with features of the highland and Pacific Coast tradition to produce the Early Classic Maya stela. Features formerly found on architectural sculpture, such as the giant masks adorning Preclassic pyramids, were adapted for use on stelae. For example, the so-called "Jester God" was transferred to the headdress of the ruler portrayed on Tikal Stela 29, which bears the oldest Long Count date yet found in the Maya lowlands – equating to 292 AD. At some Maya cities the first appearance of stelae corresponded with the foundation of dynastic rule. The standard form of the Maya stela incorporating art, calendrical dates and hieroglyphic text onto a royal monument only began to be erected in the Maya lowlands after 250 AD. The late 4th century saw the introduction of non-Maya imagery linked to the giant metropolis of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico. This foreign influence is seen at Tikal, Uaxactun, Río Azul and El Zapote, all in the Petén Department of Guatemala. At Tikal this was initiated by the king Yax Nuun Ayiin I, from there it spread to his vassal cities. In the 5th century, this strongly Teotihuacan-linked imagery was abandoned by Yax Nuun Ayiin I's son Siyaj Chan K'awiil II, who reintroduced imagery associated with the Pacific Coast and adjacent highlands. Minor references to Teotihuacan continued, for example in the form of Teotihuacan war emblems. His Stela 31 was originally erected in 445 but was later broken from its butt and was found buried in the city centre, almost directly above his tomb. It depicts the crowning of Siyaj Chan K'awiil II, with his father hovering above him as a supernatural being and is executed in traditional Maya style. On the sides of the stela are carved two portraits of his father in a non-Maya style, dressed as a Teotihuacan warrior, bearing the central Mexican atlatl spear-thrower not adopted by the Maya, and carrying a shield adorned with the face of the Mexican god Tlaloc. The reverse of the stela bears a lengthy hieroglyphic inscription detailing the history of Tikal, including the Teotihuacan invasion that established Yax Nuun Ayiin I and his dynasty. In the Early Classic period the Maya kings began to dedicate a new stela, or other monument, to mark the end of each k'atun cycle (representing 7,200 days, just under 20 sidereal years). At Tikal, the first to do so was king Kan Chitam who ruled in the late 5th century. Stela 9 from the city is the first dated monument raised to mark off a period of time, it was raised in 475. ### Late Classic In the Late Classic the sculpted images of rulers on stelae remained much the same as in the Early Classic, appearing in profile in the foreground and filling almost the entire available space, which is delimited by a frame. Imagery associated with the Mesoamerican ballgame started to appear in the Maya lowlands in the Late Classic Period. Maya kings are depicted as warriors wearing costume from the Mexican highlands, including elements such as the foreign god Tlaloc and the Teotihacan serpent. Such imagery appears in the Late Classic on stelae from Naranjo, Piedras Negras and the Petexbatún cities of Dos Pilas and Aguateca. At Dos Pilas, a pair of stelae represent the king of the city in costume forming a jaguar and eagle pairing, characteristic of the Mexican warrior cult. Stelae were being erected by the Maya across the entire central and southern Maya lowlands by 790, an area that encompassed 150,000 square kilometres (58,000 sq mi). In the north, Coba on the eastern side of the Yucatán Peninsula raised at least 23 large stelae. Although badly eroded their style and texts link them to cities from the Petén Basin. At the southern periphery of the Maya region, Copán developed a new high-relief style of stelae and in 652 the twelfth king Chan Imix K'awiil arranged a series of these stelae to define the sacred geometry of the city, and to celebrate his royal rule and his ancestors. His son and successor Uaxaclajuun Ub'aah K'awiil further developed this new high-relief style of sculpture and erected a series of intricately decorated stelae in the city's Great Plaza that brought the carving of stelae close to full in-the-round three-dimensional sculpture. Both of these kings focused on their own images on their stelae and emphasised their place in the dynastic sequence to justify their rule, possibly linked to a break in the dynastic sequence with the death of the eleventh king of Copán. After Quiriguá defeated its overlord Copán in 738, it brought massive blocks of red sandstone from quarries 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the city and sculpted a series of enormous stelae that were the biggest monolithic monuments ever raised by the Maya. Stela E stands over 10 metres (33 ft) high and weighs more than 60 tons. These stelae were shaped into a square cross-section and were decorated on all four faces. These stelae usually bear two images of the Quiriguá king, on the front and the back, in a lower relief than that found at Copán. They feature highly complex panels of hieroglyphic text that are among the most skillfully executed of all Maya inscriptions in stone. The stelae have weathered well and display fine precision on the part of the sculptors. ### Terminal Classic The decline in the erection of stelae is linked to the decline in the institution of divine kingship, which began in the Late Preclassic. Originally the stelae depicted the king with symbols of power, sometimes standing over defeated enemies and occasionally accompanied by his wives or his heir. By the Terminal Classic, kings were sharing stelae with subordinate lords, who also played a prominent role in the events depicted. This reflected a decentralisation of power and the bargaining between high-ranking nobles so that the king could maintain power, but led to a progressive weakening of the king's rule. As the position of the king became weaker and that of his vassals and subordinates became stronger, the latter began to erect their own stelae, a function that was formerly the exclusive preserve of the king himself. Some of these subordinates broke away to form their own petty states, but even this did not last and they also ceased to erect monuments. In the Pasión River region of Petén, rulers began to be portrayed as ballplayers on stelae. Seibal was the first site in the region to depict its rulers thus. Seventeen stelae were erected at Seibal between 849 and 889, and show a mix of Maya and foreign styles, including a lord wearing the beaked mask of Ehecatl, the central Mexican wind god, with a Mexican-style speech scroll emerging from the mouth. Some of these have a stylistic affinity with the painted murals at Cacaxtla, a non-Maya site in the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala. This hybrid style seems to indicate that the kings of Seibal were Maya lords adapting to changing political conditions by adopting a mix of symbols originating from both lowland Maya and central Mexican sources. Some of the more foreign-looking stelae even bear non-Maya calendrical glyphs. Stelae at Oxkintok, to the north in the Puuc region of the Yucatán Peninsula, divided the face of the stela into up to three levels, each of which contained a different scene, usually of a lone figure that could be either male or female. The representation of the human figure differed from the formal treatment in the south, and were simplified, coarse representations lacking individuality amongst sociopolitical and religious symbols. As the Classic Maya collapse swept across the Maya region, city after city ceased to erect stelae recording its dynastic achievements. At the important city of Calakmul, two stelae were raised in 800 and three more in 810, but these were the last and the city fell into silence. At Oxkintok the last stela was raised in 859. Stela 11, dated to 869, was the last monument to ever be erected at the once great city of Tikal. The last known Maya stelae bearing a Long Count calendrical date are Toniná Monument 101, which was erected in 909 to mark the k'atun ending that year, and Stela 6 from Itzimté, dated to 910. ### Postclassic At Copán ritual offerings were deposited around the city's stelae until at least 1000, which may represent the offerings of a surviving elite that still remembered its ancestors, or may be due to highland Maya still regarding the city as a place of pilgrimage long after it had fallen into ruin. A small number of sculpted stelae once stood at Cerro Quiac in the Guatemalan Highlands, and are presumed to have been erected by Mam Maya in the 13th or 14th century. At Lamanai in Belize, Classic period stelae were repositioned upon two small Postclassic platforms dating to the 15th or 16th century. At La Milpa, also in Belize, at around the time of Spanish contact in the late 16th century a tiny remnant Maya population started to make offerings of Conquest-period pottery to stelae, perhaps in an effort to invoke the ancestors to help resist the Spanish onslaught. A plain stela in Twin Pyramid Group R at Tikal was removed by the local inhabitants some time during the Postclassic; its accompanying altar was also moved but abandoned some distance from its original location. Some plain stelae were raised at Topoxté in the Petén Lakes region of Guatemala in the Postclassic; these were perhaps covered in stucco and painted. This may represent a revival of the katun-ending ceremonies that occurred in the Classic Period, and reflected ties with the northern Yucatán. ## Discovery One of the earliest accounts of Maya stelae comes from Diego Garcia de Palacio, a Spanish colonial official who described six of the stelae at Copán in a letter to king Philip II of Spain written in 1576. Juan Galindo, governor of Petén, visited Copán in 1834 and noted the sculpted high-relief stelae there. Five years later, American diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood arrived in war-torn Central America and set out for Copán, describing fifteen stelae in Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, published in 1841. Stephens and Catherwood noticed the presence of red pigment on some of the Copán stelae. Stephens unsuccessfully attempted to buy the ruins of Quiriguá, and purchased Copán for US$50 ($ in 2024) with the idea of shipping the stelae to New York for display in a new museum. In the event, he was prevented from shipping the monuments down the Copán River by the discovery of impassable rapids and all the stelae remained at the site. While Stephens was engaged on business elsewhere, Catherwood carried out a brief investigation of the stelae at Quiriguá but found them very difficult to draw without a camera lucida due to their great height. Ambrosio Tut, governor of Petén, and colonel Modesto Méndez, the chief magistrate, visited the ruins of Tikal in 1848 accompanied by Eusebio Lara, who drew some of the monuments there. In 1852 Modesto Méndez went on to discover Stela 1 and Stela 5 at Ixkun. English explorer Alfred Maudslay arrived at Quiriguá in 1881 and cleared the vegetation from the stelae, then travelled on to see the stelae at Copán. In the early 20th century, an expedition by the Carnegie Institution led by American Mayanist Sylvanus Morley discovered a stela at Uaxactun. This period marked a change from the efforts of individual explorers to those of institutions that funded archaeological exploration, excavation and restoration. ## Collections Notable collections of stelae on public display include an impressive series of 8th-century monuments at Quiriguá and 21 stelae collected in the sculpture museum at Tikal National Park, both of which are World Heritage Sites in Guatemala. Calakmul, in Mexico, is another World Heritage site that also includes many stelae regarded as outstanding examples of Maya art. Copán in Honduras, also a World Heritage Site, possesses over 10 finely carved stelae in the site core alone. The Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología ("National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology") in Guatemala City displays a number of fine stelae, including three 9th-century stelae from Machaquilá, an 8th-century stela from Naranjo and other stelae from Ixtutz, Kaminaljuyu, La Amelia, Piedras Negras, Seibal, Tikal, Uaxactun and Ucanal. The Museo Nacional de Antropología ("National Museum of Anthropology") in Mexico City has a small number of Maya stelae on display. The San Diego Museum of Man in California contains replicas of the stelae from Quiriguá that were made in 1915 for the Pacific-California Exhibition. Many Maya archaeological sites have stelae on display in their original locations, in Guatemala these include, but are not limited to, Aguateca, Dos Pilas, El Chal, Ixkun, Nakum, Seibal, Takalik Abaj, Uaxactun, and Yaxha. In Mexico, stelae may be seen at Yaxchilan, and the site museum at Toniná. ## Looting Stelae have become threatened in modern times by plundering for sale on the international art market. Many stelae are found in remote areas and their size and weight prevents them from being removed intact. Various methods are used to cut or break a stela for easier transport, including power saws, chisels, acid and heat. When a monument is well preserved, the looters attempt to cut off its face for transport. Even when successful, this results in damage to inscriptions on the sides of the stela. At worst, this method results in complete fragmentation of the stela face with any recoverable sculpture removed for sale. Traceable fragments of well known monuments have been purchased by American museums and private collectors in the past. When such monuments are removed from their original context, their historical meaning is lost. Although museums have justified their acquisition of stelae fragments with the argument that such objects are better preserved in an institution, no stela has been sold in as good a condition as it was in its original location. After 1970 there was a sharp drop in Maya stelae available on the New York art market due to the ratification of a treaty with Mexico that guarantees the return of stolen pre-Columbian sculpture that was removed from the country after the ratification date. In the early 1970s some museums, such as that of the University of Pennsylvania, responded to international criticism by no longer purchasing archaeological artefacts that lack a legally documented history, including place of origin, previous owners and an export license. Harvard University also instituted a similar policy in the early 1970s. In 1972, the initially well preserved Stela 5 at Ixkun was smashed into pieces by looters, who heated it until it shattered and then stole various pieces. A number of remaining fragments of the monument were rescued by archaeologist Ian Graham and transferred to the mayor's office in Dolores, Petén, where they were eventually used as construction material before once again being recovered, this time by the Atlas Arqueológico de Guatemala in 1989, and moved to their archaeological laboratory. At the nearby site of Ixtonton, 7.5 kilometres (4.7 mi) from Ixkun, most of the stelae were robbed before the site's existence was reported to the Guatemalan authorities. By the time archaeologists visited the site in 1985 only 2 stelae remained. In 1974, a dealer in pre-Columbian artefacts by the name of Hollinshead arranged for the illegal removal of Machaquilá Stela 2 from the Guatemalan jungle. He and his co-conspirators were prosecuted in the United States under the National Stolen Property Act and they were the first people to be convicted under this act with reference to national patrimony laws. The act states: > "whoever transports, transmits, or transfers in interstate or foreign commerce any goods ... of the value of $5,000 or more, knowing the same to have been stolen, converted or taken by fraud... [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both... "[w]hoever receives, possesses, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes of any goods .. . which have crossed a State or United States boundary after being stolen, unlawfully converted, or taken, knowing the same to have been stolen, unlawfully converted, or taken (is subject to fine or imprisonment)." The act was originally intended to discourage the handling of stolen property but several courts have judged that the National Stolen Property Act is sufficiently broad in scope to apply to goods crossing into the United States from a foreign nation, and is therefore applicable in the case of stolen cultural property. Under Guatemalan law, Maya stelae and other archaeological artefacts are property of the Guatemalan government and may not be removed from the country without its permission. In the case of Machaquilá Stela 2, the monument was well known before it was stolen and its illegal removal was easy to prove. The stela itself was cut into pieces, with the face being sawn off and moved to a fish packing factory in Belize, where it was packed into boxes and shipped to California. There it was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after being offered for sale to various institutions. The stolen portion of the stela was returned to Guatemala and is now in storage at the Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología in Guatemala City. Looting has been linked to the economic and political stability of the possessing nation, with levels of looting increasing during times of crisis. It also appears that art collectors have stelae, or portions of them, stolen to order by browsing archaeological books and catalogues for desirable pieces. Examples of this may be found at Aguateca and El Perú, both in Guatemala's Petén department, where only the better preserved hieroglyphs and human faces were cut away. ## List of known Maya stelae by city ## See also - Copán Altar Q - Olmec colossal heads - Pascual Abaj - Potbelly sculpture - Yaxchilan Lintel 24