El jade por siempre, un símbolo de amor

ACCESO RÁPIDO
Como se hizo
Quienes lo hicimos
Fotos de los 9 Bolontikus
Fotos de las 10 esculturas
Fotos de las 4 bases
Fotos de la lapida

THE TOMB OF PAKAL (Top)

Assuming the callenge to do a recreation of the tomb, located in the inside of the Inscription Temple in Palenque, we thought about the possibility to relive the moment 1322 years ago, when Palenque`s 11th governor was burried. So we focused our work to present the tomb, as we think it looked like in the year 683, with all its colours, all figures, but without the prints of time, how it was the vision of the archaeologists, who found these vestiges 49 years ago, and how it can be observed in the recreation of the National Antropology Museum in Mexico-City.

Working without the scientist rigour, which classify the professional works of the archaeologists and restorers, but holding on tho all available professional information, we started to make the replica of the tomb in April 1999 and worked against the clock to finish it in October 2001.

The carvings of the tomb and the memorial tablet were made of artificial stone, produced with marbel and calidra, pozzolana cement. The weight of the memorial tablet is 1200 kg (1.2 tons; the estimated weight of the original is 10 tons) and the sarcophagus weighs around 4 tons.

The stucco used to make the figures of the nine Bolontiku was a mixture of natural stone lime mixed with resine with nopal rubber and white cement to 5%. The paintings were tested with vegetable elements, like cochineal, but we had many problems with them and in the end we had tu use acrylic dyes.

WHO WE DID THEM? (Top)

Direction of the investigation and work process:
Herbert Castellanos Ramirez
Sponsored by: Beatriz Cuellar Porras y Gerardo Leech Lewis.
Archaeological investigation: Áyax Moreno
Architectonical consultancy: Mark Zansin
Craft works: André Grauver, Álvaro Estrada, Carlos López Escandón, Benito Pérez López, Edgar Marin Lopez.
Technical works: José Cuellar y Carlos Contreras

Actually -2003-, the access to the crypt in Palenque is restricted. Although it wasn’t possible anymore to go down to the tomb, the constant number of visitors was changing the micro environment inside, due to the breaths, swet, etc., which was creating fungus and concentrations of humidity, which affected not only hte molecular consistence of the stones, but the delicate texture of the stuccos, of which only persist scarcely 40% of the originals.

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