A 500-pound stone altar is commissioned by Taj Chan Ahk, the Maya lord of Cancuen, to commemorate a summit with the vassal king of a neighboring kingdom. The large limestone disk is carved with images of the two Maya lords playing a sacred ball game. It is used as a marker for the game and a place for animal sacrifices.
A.D. 800
Taj Chan Ahk died in 796. A few years later Cancuen is abandoned, and the altar is covered over by mahogany rain forest that begins to blanket Cancuen.
1900s
The altar dated to A.D. 790 remains buried and goes unnoticed by archaeologist Teobert Maler in 1905. Although explorer Sylvanus Morley does not discover it either in 1915, he uncovers a very similar altar at the ball court, dated to A.D. 795. The altar found by Morley was delivered to the National Museum of Archaeology in Guatemala City.
1996 to 1999
Archaeologist Arthur Demarest determines that the site was once a major trading center and that its royal palace was one of the largest in the Maya world. Major excavation of the site begins, though excavation of the ball court is postponed until 2004.
October 2001
Heavy rains expose the altar, for the first time after more than 1,000 years. One of the leaders of a local gang of looters becomes aware of the altar and notifies his father, who leads his gang on a raid of the site, hauling the heavy altar out of the ball court and placing it into a boat. The altar is taken to the gang leader's encampment, downriver from Cancuen.
Ball Court Marker, looted in 2001 and recovered in 2003
November 2001 to December 2002
The altar is photographed and the pictures are distributed by the gang in search of a buyer. Local drug traffickers inspect the altar and offer U.S. $5,000 for it, but the gang leader holds out for more money.
December 2002
A split in the gang leads four members to steal the altar, moving it across the river and burying it. Later, the gang leader retrieves the altar in a gun battle heard by nearby villagers. The gang continues search for a buyer.
February 2003
While working in Cancuen, Demarest and his colleagues have developed a trust bond with the Q'eqchi' Maya residents who now had a stake in the future of the site. In February, they delivered Demarest news that a woman had been beaten by a gang looking for the altar. Demarest and his team began an investigation to track it down. They learned that one fraction of the drug traffickers broke off and fought with the other. Wearing ski masks and bearing automatic weapons they had gone to the village to find where they believed the others had hidden the altar. They beat the innocent woman trying to convince her to tell of its location.
April 2003
Demarest writes a formal report of the altar's theft to the Guatemalan Ministry of Culture, which calls in the Ecological and Cultural Patrimony Division of the Servicio de Investigacion Crimilar, S.I.C. The S.I.C. agents stages an evening raid on the outlaws. The gang leader and a lieutenant are arrested. The altar, however, is not found. It has been sold to a looter, who has loaded it onto a truck and hauled it to a town 20 miles to the south.
May 2003
A photograph of the altar is recovered, and the Ministry of Culture and S.I.C. send copies of the photograph and drawings made from it to law-enforcement officials around the world, including Interpol and Belizean authorities. The dealer last known to have the altar is arrested but claims it is not longer in his possession; it has gone to a dealer in Melchor de Mencos, on the border with Belize.
August 2003
The authorities discover that their efforts to make the altar "too hot" to sell have been effective when Maya villagers indicate that it has been moved back to the region from which it was originally stolen and then buried until it can be sold safely.
September to October 2003
The altar is tracked and then recovered after another series of S.I.C raids. Later several looters are arrested and await trial. The altar, dirt-covered but in otherwise sound condition, is transported to the National Museum in Guatemala City for cleaning and decipherment.
June 2004
A long trial is held. At risk of their lives eight of the Q'eqchi' Maya from the local villages testify about the looters and the robbery. Death treats and several assassination attempts are made against Demarest and the other witnesses.
September 2005 to March 2006
Altar is transported, legally this time, to Europe to be part of a Maya exhibition held in Helsinki, Finland, at the Didrichsen Museum of Art and Culture
