Duke University Press Absent Stone: Mexican Patrimony and the Aftershocks of State Theft

"The Absent Stone centers around the Tlaloc Monolith-the largest monolithic stone sculpture in Mesoamerica -and its forceful relocation from San Miguel Coatlinchan to Mexico City in 1964. Sandra Rozental documents the history of this stone's theft and uses ethnography to engage its lingering presence and generative aftershocks in Coatlinchan. The book moves critical work on monuments and museum collections beyond the language of law, heritage and cultural property, revealing the ecological and telluric relations of care, belonging and connection that bind people and things to the places they inhabit. Rozental makes visible the fraught relationship between patrimony, nationalism, territory, memory, and materiality in Mexico"-- In 1964, the Mexican government forcefully relocated the largest stone sculpture in the Americas, popularly known as Tlaloc, from the town of Coatlinchan to the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. The Absent Stone traces how this monolith continues to affect Coatlinchan and its residents despite, but also because of, its theft. Where and to whom do ancient things belong? What happens when they are stolen—not by a colonial power, but by a national museum claiming them as state patrimony? What kinds of healing and restitution can follow? In The Absent Stone, Sandra Rozental tells the story of the Piedra de los Tecomates, the largest stone monument in the Americas, popularly identified as the pre-Hispanic rain deity Tlaloc. In 1964, the Mexican state called in the military to forcefully relocate this 167-ton carving from the town of Coatlinchan to Mexico City’s National Anthropology Museum. Using in-depth historical and ethnographic research, Rozental traces how the stone’s absence continues to affect and unsettle Coatlinchan and its residents decades later, revealing the tensions between patrimony, nationalism, territory, memory, and materiality in Mexico. Questioning the premise that historical artifacts belong in museums under state-sanctioned care, The Absent Stone pushes contemporary critical scholarship on monuments and museum collections beyond the language of law, heritage, and cultural property, demonstrating how ancient things remain bound to the people and places they come from even after they are removed and displayed elsewhere. Autorid: Sandra Rozental