History
The statue is 55 cm (22 in) high, 42 cm (16 in) wide, and weighs an estimated 60 kg (132 lb). It was probably carved during the Middle Formative Period, some time between 1000 to 600 BCE).
The statue was discovered in near Jesús Carranza, Veracruz, by two local children, Rosa and Severiano Paschal Manuel. Dug out and taken to their nearby home, it was declared the "La Virgen de las Limas" and set up on its own altar. Word of the find reached archaeologists in Xalapa. After promising to keep the statue on display — and to build a local school — the archaeologists moved the sculpture to the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology.
Five years later, in October 1970, the statue was stolen from the museum, only later to be found in a motel room in San Antonio, Texas, apparently too famous to be sold on the black market.
It is presently on display at the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa, in Veracruz.
Read more about this topic: Las Limas Monument 1
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It’s nice to be a part of history but people should get it right. I may not be perfect, but I’m bloody close.”
—John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten)