An ancient Olmec monument symbolizing the entrance to the afterlife has finally been restored to its former glory and returned to its ancestral home, almost 3,000 years after it was sculpted. The enormous Portal al Inframundo (Portal to the Underworld) is thought to have been looted in the 1960s, yet was only brought back to Chalcatzingo in central Mexico following a decades-long investigation into its whereabouts.
Located in the state of Morelos, Chalcatzingo was an important Olmec site that is famous for its enormous sculpted monuments. Among these was the Portal to the Underworld, which depicts the gaping jaws of a mythical feline figure, forming an opening that represents the threshold of the spiritual realm.
The piece has been dated to the Preclassic period, and is thought to have been created sometime between 800 and 400 BCE. Unfortunately, however, the monumental artwork was ransacked shortly after it was discovered in the mid-20th century.
In order to transport the piece, thieves had to significantly reduce its size and weight, and used mallets to smash much of the bulk without damaging the main facade. They then smuggled the artifact over the border to the US, where it began its journey through the illegal antiquities trade network.
In 1968, the sculpture appeared in a museum in New York under the title of "Monster of the Earth". It was here that archaeologist David Grove first encountered the portal, immediately noting its Olmec flavor and linking it to the other enormous engravings at Chalcatzingo.
For instance, the great feline’s eyes appear to take the form of the Olmec cross, while the corners of the creature’s mouth are decorated with bromeliad flowers, which also appear on other monuments at Chalcatzingo. However, as the relic continued to circulate through the black market, it became harder and harder to trace its origins.
It wasn’t until the start of this century that the thread was finally picked up by Mario Córdova Tello from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). After coming across a description of the portal written decades earlier by Grove, Córdova Tello began to retrace the artifact’s steps from museum to museum, eventually gathering enough evidence to prove that the item had been illegally removed from its home in Chalcatzingo.
Finally, on May 19, 2023, the Portal to the Underworld was repatriated to Mexico. Fittingly, Grove died less than a week later, making his own passage through the doorway to the next world just as his life’s work was completed.
In the year since then, experts have been meticulously restoring the ancient monument, undoing the damage caused by traffickers who had sought to reduce it to a more discrete size. Using the same materials with which the portal was originally crafted, researchers have now filled in the defects left by these looters, expanding the relic to its original size of 1.8 by 1.5 meters (5.9 by 4.9 feet).
Now returned to Chalcatzingo, the Portal to the Underworld has finally completed its round-trip to the abyss and back.
