Illicit Antiquities
Research Centre
against the theft & traffic
of archaeology

MayaQuest takes on Internet trade in antiquities

John G Fox

Director of Research
Adventure Learning Division
Classroom Connect
Minneapolis
jfox@classroom.com

Culture Without Context

Issue 8,
Spring 2001

From 19 February to 16 March almost a million grade school students in the United States participated in MayaQuest, an online, interactive expedition to explore the world of the ancient Maya. As the team’s archaeologist, I helped lead a team of scientists and explorers as we explored ancient Maya ruins and met with contemporary Maya people in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. We sent daily reports, videos and photos back to an interactive Web site via a remote satellite connection.

In addition to learning about the ancient Maya, students participated each week in a feature called ‘Make A Difference’. Our team in the field wrote about important issues affecting the Maya region and enabled students to get involved and take action for positive change. One of our most successful efforts targeted the looting of Maya sites and the rising trade of antiquities on the Internet. After learning in-depth about the looting trade and seeing photos of recent looter’s pits at the site of Tikal, 1382 classrooms signed a petition asking Amazon.com and eBay.com to halt the trade of antiquities on their Web sites.

Individual students and classrooms wrote impassioned letters to the Public Relations people at these two companies and received individual responses, although Amazon and eBay mostly reiterated their formal positions on this topic. Amazon.com sent backpacks to one classroom, but they weren’t comfortable accepting them. We turned it into a dilemma on our Web site and the kids collectively voted that it would be improper to keep the backpacks, but they thought it might be rude to send them back. So, in the end, they donated them to a domestic abuse shelter in Austin, Texas. The students have become strong advocates for cultural preservation and will continue to put pressure on those involved in the illicit antiquities trade.

Our next expedition, AmazonQuest, will take us to Peru from September 24 to October 26. See our Web site, http://quest.classroom.com, for further information on the Quests.

First posted September 2001; Page design updated September 2006