Jimbal Stela 1

Author: Donna Yates

Last Modified: 10 Apr 2025

Black and white image of a Maya stela that has been heavily damaged. The top portion has been cut off, damaging the standing male figure down to his neck.

Mutilated and partially-stolen Maya sculpture used as an illustration on an ICOM Red List

The Maya site of Jimbal is located in Guatemala’s Petén department approximately 14 kilometres north of the core of Tikal (Fry and Cox 1974), halfway between the sites of Tikal and Uaxactun (Robertson 2013: 15). It was likely a satellite of Tikal. To date, archaeologists have recorded one carved stone monument at Jimbal. Stela 1 records a relatively late Classic Maya date (June 23, 879) and its existence may indicate some degree of breakdown of Tikal’s central control around that time. 

Jimbal Stela 1 was photographed intact in May 1965 by Christopher Jones of the University of Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania Tikal Project Negative 65-43-705; http://research.famsi.org/uploads/tikal/Monuments/65-043-0705.jpg). Sometime after that date, a portion of the sculpture was stolen.

Merle Greene Robertson (1972: 151) was the first to record the theft, having detected the loss in July 1970. Three inches of the front of the top third of the stela had been sawn and then prised off, creating portable pieces. The result was the removal of two figures from the top of the stela, presumably for trafficking then sale, and the destruction of the face of the stela’s primary figure (Robertson 1972). The current location of the missing portion of Jimbal Stela 1 is unknown.

Robertson asserted early on that the missing portion of Jimbal Stela 1 was stolen only shortly before July 1970 (Robertson 1972: 151). In a short memoir written in 2010, Robertson recounts that she found aspects of her July 1970 visit to see the Jimbal Stela suspicious. She implied that a particular keeper at Tikal was involved in the looting of the stela based on how he acted during their trip to Jimbal (Robertson 2013: 16).

A photograph of the mutilated remains of Jimbal Stela 1 appears on the International Council of Museums’s Red List for Latin America (ICOM n.d., see: https://icom.museum/en/object/stela-1-jimbal-stone-high-2-3-m-museo-nacional-de-antropologia-y-etnologia-guatemala/). It is used to represent the category of *Maya Stela* which is considered to be at great risk of theft and trafficking.

[Image: Jimbal Stela 1 after the top portion was looted. Image via ICOM Red List]

Works Cited

Fry, Robert E. and Scott C. Cox (1974) The Structure of Ceramic Exchange at Tikal, Guatemala. World Archaeology 6(2): 209–225.

ICOM (n.d.) Red List – Latin America. https://icom.museum/en/object/stela-1-jimbal-stone-high-2-3-m-museo-nacional-de-antropologia-y-etnologia-guatemala/. Accessed 6 August 2023.

Roberson, Merle Greene (1972) Monument Thievery in Mesoamerica. American Antiquity. 37(2): 147–155.

Robertson, Merle Greene (2013) The Further Adventures of Merle (continued). The PARI Journal XIV(I): 13–16. https://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/journal/1304/Merle3.pdf. Accessed 6 August 2023.