The Italian who unearthed the Mexican past

My father, Dr. Charles R. Wicke, was a very humble man. He died in 2012 at the age of 84, but before he started to deteriorate I convinced him to put together an online version of his memoir. In it, he shared some of his early experiences in South  America and Mexico as an anthropologist/archaeologist in the 1950s-60s. By the time he met my mom in 1964 at Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology he had been in Mexico 10 years, published a book on one of Mexico's oldest civilizations, and had mastered the Spanish language. He also had earned the trust and respect of the anthropological academic community. I've known all this for years, but once in a while, more fascinating facts are unearthed from the past in serendipitous ways. 

With Marco Vigato in Mexico City

Today I met the person responsible for one of those new discoveries. Marco Vigato is an Italian independent researcher living in Mexico City with his wife and two kids. A few months ago I received an unsolicited email from him asking me or anyone in my immediate family for any information related to some ancient slabs my dad documented in an article that was published in 1960 in the Cambridge journal American Antiquity. I didn't know what he was talking about but I reached out to my mom and also rummaged through my files to find the article Marco was referencing. My father discovered 4 carved stone slabs at a site in San Miguel Ixtapan, about a 2-hour drive from Mexico City.  Unfortunately, one of the slabs photographed by my father has been destroyed by looters but Marco is championing a conservation campaign in an effort to discover the slabs' origins. 

The abstract to the 1960 article, A Possible Andean Influence in Central Mexico reads, "Stone slabs recently discovered in the region near Tejupilco in the State of Mexico are sculptured in a simple, low relief, bold geometric style, unlike known Mesoamerican styles but with striking parallels in the Peruvian Andes."  

To date, the slabs' origins remain a mystery, but thanks to Marco's passion and dedication as an independent researcher (aside from his day job as a business strategist at Walmart de Mexico) Marco is trying to answer pressing questions such as,  Where did these enigmatic stones come from? What were their purpose and function? Were they part of some colossal, megalithic structure, or were they the altars of a forgotten civilization, hundreds, if not thousands of years old?

Below is the photograph my father took in 1959 of one of the stone slabs, followed by the stone slab as it looks today.

Marco Vigato with stone slab fragments 

To help in his conservation quest, Marco has spearheaded a fundraising effort and also published his own article in Ancient Origins.net. Sidebar: When we met on the Day of the Dead in Mexico City he also told me he was working on a Netflix series about the Oaxacan site, Mitla. My dad accomplished great works in Oaxaca in the late '60s including unearthing a ball court at Yagul.

To quote Marco, "After making contact with the director of the archaeological site of San Miguel Ixtapan, the National Institute of History and Anthropology, and the Secretary of Culture of the State of Mexico, our Team agreed to provide the funds and support required for the rescue and restoration of the slab’s fragments, so that they can be recomposed and exhibited to the public at the local site museum of San Miguel Ixtapan; in the hope that this will generate further interest and attract much-needed funding in one of the least explored and most endangered areas of Mesoamerica."

On this day of the dead, we raise our glasses. Here's to my dad, Marco, and all those who passionately unearth a past that will hopefully be a link to our present.

Our home shrine for the Day of the Dead, remembering my Mikhail, my dad Charles R. Wicke, my abuelos Carlos and Clara, and my aunt Enriqueta.