£11348 F mexicon Aktuelle Informationen und Studien zu Mesoamerika News and studies on Mesoamerica — Noticias y contribuciones sobre Mesoamérica Vol. XVII Februar 1995 Nr1Contents News and Notes 3 Contributions Antonio Benavides C.: Edzné, Campeche, México: ‘Temporada de campo 1993, 7 Elisabeth Wagner: The dates of the High Priest Grave (“Osario") Inscription, Chichen Itz, ‘Yucatin 10 Recent Publications Books 1B Periodicals 20 Impressum 20 Cover Panel 2 from Finca Encanto, Chiapas In 1969, the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado, ac- ‘quired a rectangular limestone panel, 84 cm high and 49 em wide, consisting of two fragments. This panel was described as “stone panel with figure of priest” and received the ‘museum catalogue number 1969.31 (NW-MX-295). The provenance of the panel was unknown, but according to the ‘museum catalogue card entry, the object probably originated in Tabasco, Mexico, with its style pointing to the Palenque region. The figurative image was described in the catalogue card as follows: “This light cream, fine grained limestone panel with afigure of aman standing in front of foliated plant form is done in the Palenque style. He wears an elaborated headdress and circular earspools and appears to have some kind of jewelry at the neck. Originally the piece was covered with stucco and traces of red and blue paint can still be seen, ‘The foliated plant form seems to relate to the lid of the sareaphagus in the crypt of the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque and to the basrelief panels in the Temple of the Foliated Cross also at Palenque”. In 1981, no photograph of this panel could be obtained in order to find out if it is an object of known or unknown place of origin, orevena fake. Due to the fact that the museum could not identify the sculpture, Lincluded it in the catalogue “Maya “Monuments: Sculptures of Unknown Provenance in Middle America” (1984:28, no.5). Since 1981 I have attempted 10 ‘obtain a black and white photograph of the piece, which was lying unrestored in storage in the museum and in November, 1993 I contacted the muscum again in order to get at least polaroid photographs of the panel which would be sufficient to attempt an identification. Finally, in January of 1994 Cynthia Nakamura of the Photography Department of the Denver Art Museum sent me four polaroid photographs of the broken panel. With these pictures it was possible to identify the object asa Late Classic incised stone panel from the Finca ElEncanto, Chiapas, Mexico, discovered by Frans Blom in the course of his expeditionsin the Maya region between 1921 and 1923 and published by him in an article titled “Notes from the Maya Area’ (American Anthropologist 2611924]:405, fig.2).. In 1922, Blom visited the Finca El Encanto, then belonging to ‘a German American mahagony and coffee concer, where he found a stone tablet lying in the pavement ofa path leading up tothe main house, 83 em high and 50 em wide. Blom (op. cit. 40St.) described as follows: “The figure represents a standing priest incised inthe surface ofthe stone in left profile the head- dress is similar to that of the standing figure in the larger tablet. It is interesting to note the way in which the figure holds his hands, pointing with the left hand downwards. As con the large tablet this figure likewise has a cavity under the nose filled with resinous substance. In the front of the figure isa large omamental scroll and some circles filled with cross ‘hatching, As this tablet fora long time has been exposed to the tropical rains and though the wear of the shoes of the people walking over it, the ornament is somewhat effaced”. The “larger tablet” referred to by Blom is a second incised tablet, 110 cm high and 80 cm wide, which was embedded in a wall of the finca house (Fig. 1). Fig. 1. Tracing by H. O, Heafner-Koch (from E.P. Dieseldorff: Kunst und Religion der Mayavélker, I:pl. 29, fig. 71, Hamburg 1933), ‘The smaller tablet, here designated Panel 2, was published by Blom in the form a incomplete drawing, possibly superim- posed over a photograph. Another crude drawing of this sculpture was published by Roberto Gareja Moll (Frans Blom: Las ruinas de Palenque, Xup4 y Finca Encanto, México, D. 1982:146, fig. 128). Donald Hales (written communication, May 1994) in- formed me that in 1977 he obtained a large sized black-and- white print of this panel from a well-known art gallery in Los Angeles, but at the time he was unable to identify it. He sent ‘copies ofthe photograph to Merle Green Robertson and Linda Schele; Schele was able to identify the tablet as the long missing El Encanto panel and informed Hales that she had a ‘copy of Blom’s original drawing of the object. To whom the Los Angeles art dealer sold the piece is unknown. The present location of the larger tablet, Panel I of Finca El Encanto is unknown, but was probably taken or looted from the finca at the same time as Panel 2. As this panel also has never been properly recorded one can only hope that it will also turn up somewhere. With the kind permission of the Denver Art Museum we publish one of the recently taken excellent photographs of Panel 2. Cover photo: Photographic Service, The Denver Ant Museum, ‘ext Kal Herbert Mayer