Architectural Restoration Criteria in the Maya Area

What Can We Do?

Trying to Attain Climatic Stability

We are fully aware that the struggle is against the forces of nature, and therefore we must acknowledge our incapacity to modify them or to eliminate them from the environment:

It is widely known that the best way to preserve cultural goods consists in air conditioning museum halls, thus maintaining in all of them constant conditions of temperature and humidity, together with an acceptable degree of atmospheric purity.
(Coremans, 1962, pg. 35)

As to the architecture we intend to preserve, it is not possible to place it inside buildings with the adequate conditions previously mentioned of climatic stability and purity. However, this, in addition to the examples seen in Tikal, Copán, and many other sites from Belize and northern Petén, provided us with the foundations to propose that it is not the lack or excess of humidity what will preserve buildings, but rather the stability of the climate and the microclimate. We must remember that the mask inside the tunnel in Structure 5D-33-2nd at Tikal (Photo 46, below), as also several molded stuccoes inside some tunnels in Copán, represent a clear evidence that high humidity within absolutely stable conditions is not harmful.

The book El Deterioro y la Conservación de Materiales Porosos de Construcción en Monumentos, a bibliographical revision translated into Spanish by Luis Torres, reads:

"Chlorides are highly hygroscopic and the salts are first dissolved during the condensation of water present in the surrounding air. Once in a solution, they are very active regarding three aspects: they are very mobile and thus penetrate and break many crystalline structures; they peptize, that is, they suspend in water large conglomerates of molecules; and finally, they increase the non-stoichiometry of crystals. This properties of chlorides explain the dangerous lixiviation of the cementing medium observed in the stones that contain these salts. That’s why such construction materials tend to become pulverized. Nitrates and salts from organic acids are equally dangerous."
(T. Stambolov, 1984, pg. 13)

In simple words: when chlorides crystallize in the pores of stones or stuccoes, they increase their volume and therefore become destructive agents that turn stone into powder. The acidity of decomposing organic materials adds to this phenomenon, minerals are transformed, and stones destroyed. But whenever the monuments are located in shady areas, soluble salts are unable to crystallize as a consequence of the humid environment, and therefore appear to be innocuous. On the contrary, in sunny areas, they crystalize when the sun rises and melt once again with the humidity of the night.

Microflora, which has given a coloration to most buildings and foundations, represents as well a destructive element, as defined by Mason Hale, Jr., in his study on this particular subject (1975). However, as he also acknowledges, nothing is worse than the damage caused by the dissolution of materials caused by the meteorization of the weather. This is what he wrote:

"While microflora is causing extensive but relatively low-level deterioration, natural weathering of the limestone at Tikal is more conspicuous and more dangerous for the future conservation of the monuments."
(M.E. Hale, 1975: pg. 318)

The little vegetation coloring the walls of buildings, when dried during periods with no rain, falls and drags with it particles of stone or stucco; throughout the years, however, we have observed that whenever this layer retains its humidity and does not fall, it may also be a factor of conservation, to some extent, or at least, it is much less damaging than the water soluble salts.

This may be verified inside the buildings which now, thirty four years later, still maintain the original stuccoes under the layer of algaes that caused the coloration. At a mere sight, at least, we are unable to clearly determine how deteriorated they may be, except for the damages caused by visitors who want to write their names on them (Photo 56, above). This is not the case in sunny areas, where the effects caused by salts are catastrophic, unavoidable and growing (Photo 42 y Photo 43).

Given such a delicate situation and in the awareness that the enemy is powerful, I feel that our mission, until better tools are found, is to try to avoid the environmental changes that the monuments have endured for over twelve centuries; they have stabilized somehow within the jungle that protects them and we are not to eliminate it as it was done in the past.

As to Copán’s Hieroglyphic Stairway, and keeping in mind the reality described, my proposal consisted in making a valiant decision to place it inside a special building, leaving a duplicate to replace the original stones. Nonetheless, the in situ conservation trends in 1997 convinced the Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia to carry out a previous scientific study and a two-year long monitoring.

The purpose of the study, with the intervention of experts from the Getty Conservation Institute and supported by UNESCO, the results of which I ignore so far, is to define the most convenient method to preserve the most important monument of Maya literature and sculpture in situ, for the enjoyment of visitors. It is our hope that the solution, whichever it may be, arrives in time.

Finally, I must say that the most dangerous aspect of conservation is the poor attention given to the sites already restored. This is a widespread problem; there’s no personnel trained in conservation, and even maintenance has been relegated to sweep the floors now and then, and to use the machete, which occasionally risks to become a destructive agent. In several archaeological sites, and I won’t be giving any names, one can see how the machete of the cleaning crews have added to the destruction of the most important stones of the restored structures.

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