Danger in the Ruins
At risk. It's not just the artifacts that need protection. In 2003, park rangers got into a shooting match with armed thieves attempting to steal a fledgling from a scarlet macaw nest not far from the camp. The spectacular 2 1/2-foot-high, blood-red parrots sell for about $2,000 each in the United States. Since the end of the civil war in 1996, desperately poor farmers and rich cattle ranchers have been pouring into this vast, virgin rain forest. In the past five years, more than 5,000 homesteaders have illegally built homes and set fires to clear the land for corn and cattle. In 2003, Freidel's first year of excavation here, the flames got so close--about 2 miles away--that he had to pull workers off the ruins to dig fire lines to save the camp. This year's fires haven't been so threatening, but the air is almost always scented with smoke, with ashes that flutter down like hellish snowflakes in the tropical heat. The ground fires have so far burned an estimated 40 percent of the park, which is supposed to protect a lake that is one of the most important wetlands in the world.
The growing forest population also creates serious threats to the archaeologists themselves. Just that day, a group of Freidel's staff scouring a new part of the jungle for more excavation sites did belly-flops into the dust when they heard shots, clearly warning them to keep out of what could have been a looting camp or even one of the drug runners' airstrips, common in the park. And earlier this year, as Freidel was returning from one of his rare breaks in town, his truck was stopped on a dirt road by a rubble roadblock set up by machete-armed farmworkers. The angry mob detained him, his photographer, and his driver to exact negotiations with soldiers who had arrested one of their compatriots. After about 45 nerve-wracking minutes, negotiations began, and they were released.
The lawlessness and greed that are destroying the rain forest and hidden history that he loves "got my dander up," Freidel says. "They think I am a naive archaeologist. But if you don't have somebody willing to take a stand in the world, then what are you going to do? What is going to happen if I fail? There is a very good chance that the looters and ranchers will not stop until they get to the border," he says.
As the workers' 4 p.m. quitting time nears, Piehl and Rich have finally measured and photographed every centimeter of the crypt and can start moving the treasures out. Piehl carefully lifts the closest bowl and wraps it up in a sheet of foam. She attaches it to the winch, and the workers pull it up. Above ground, everyone stops to admire the fanciful black-and-orange serpents painted on its top. Rich wraps the lidded pot in more foam and gingerly places the bowl in the handmade crate. After stuffing all the foam they had brought up to the site that morning, she realizes with dismay that there's not enough. The pot will bounce around inside the crate and could get damaged. But Rich has an inspiration. She runs to the makeshift outhouse built here for the workers and the Army guards, grabs an armful of toilet paper rolls, and stuffs them all around the bowl. Now the fit is snug. "Actually," she jokes, "this is a better use of this particular brand."
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