PARIS, FRANCE—BBC News reports that a French collector handed over a fragment of an eighth-century A.D. Maya stela to Guatemala during a ceremony in Paris. The stone sculpture, which depicts a ruler wearing a bird of prey mask, disappeared from the site of Piedras Negras in the 1960s and reappeared at a Paris auction in 2019. Guatemalan officials objected to the sale and asked for the object to be returned. The carving will go on display at Guatemala’s National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Guatemala City. To read about a stela discovered at northern Guatemala’s ancient city of Witzna, go to “Maya Total War.”

Source: archaeology.org