Mesoamerica — Antiquities Research

The looting of Maya sites in particular has been relentless and continuous, distinct from the event-driven looting waves in Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Syria. Pre-Columbian sacred materials carry operative ritual content — calendar / astronomical data, ritual sequences, deity invocations — actively in use by Mesoamerican-derived magical traditions.

Documented record

Maya sites have been continuously looted across the post-conquest period, with industrial-scale modern looting documented since the 20th century.
Only four Maya codices are known to exist publicly: the Dresden, Madrid, Paris, and (disputed) Grolier codices.

The Maya codices situation

Only four Maya codices are publicly known. The number of pre-Columbian codices that existed before the Spanish-conquest book-burnings was substantial, and a private-counterpart inventory — codices that have never surfaced publicly but are held privately — is plausible but not documented. This is parallel to the Mesopotamia cluster’s “operative tablets in private hands without subsequent publication” pattern.

Object class of interest

Codices (the small public corpus + any private-held material)
Stelae fragments with ritual inscriptions
Cylinder seals and ritual figurines
Calendar / astronomical inscription objects

Operative content at unpublished sites

Calendar and astronomical data
Ritual sequences
Deity invocations

Practitioner demographic

Practitioners of Mesoamerican-derived magical traditions. Less directly intersecting with Thelemic / OTO networks than Mesopotamian or Egyptian material, but significant in its own ritual ecology.

Open lines of investigation