Belize
Related Encyclopedia Entries
![Map of Belize ArmadilloHuechero](https://traffickingculture.org/app/uploads/2012/08/ArmadilloHuechero-150x150.jpg)
Huechero
A huechero is a person who clandestinely excavates at archaeological sites for the purpose of obtaining marketable antiquities; a looter.
![Map of Belize Photo of Machaquilá Stela 2, provided by and used with the permission of MUNAE; the cuts made by looters to render the sculpture into transportable blocks are visible.](https://traffickingculture.org/app/uploads/2018/08/Machaquila-Stela-2-via-MUNAE-and-leonardo-pimentel-rosales-e1596446715495-150x150.jpg)
Machaquilá Stela 2
Maya sculpture looted from Guatemala and smuggled into the U.S. resulting in a ground-breaking court decision.
![Map of Belize Black and white photo of a Maya stone stela face lying on the ground, it depicts a man in elaborate regalia, but the stela has clearly been broken into several large and irregularly shaped pieces.](https://traffickingculture.org/app/uploads/2023/08/Naranjo-Stela-30-by-Joya-Haii-150x150.jpg)
Naranjo Stela 30
Stolen Maya sculpture seized by US Authorities when a crate carrying it broke open in the port of Houston Naranjo is a Maya site located near Guatemala’s border with Belize. It is 18 km north of the town of Melchor de Mencos via a logging road built in the 1950s (Peabody Museum n.d.). Naranjo was discovered in 1905 by Teobert Maler, who recorded 32 stela at the site, including Naranjo Stela 30...
Related Publications
![](https://traffickingculture.org/app/themes/trafficking/images/grey.png)
Tremain, C.G. and D. Yates, eds. (2019), The Market for Mesoamerica: Reflections on the Sale of Pre-Columbian Antiquities. Gainsville: University Press of Florida
![](https://traffickingculture.org/app/themes/trafficking/images/pdf.png)
Yates, D. (2015), ‘Reality and Practicality: Challenges to Effective Cultural Property Policy on the Ground in Latin America’, International Journal of Cultural Property 22 (2–3): 337–356.
![](https://traffickingculture.org/app/themes/trafficking/images/pdf.png)