Pyramid Schemes: Resurrecting Tikal through the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

ABSTRACT Carved out of the jungle by American big business, Penn Museum’s project at Tikal to restore massive pyramids and showcase Maya civilization was a direct outgrowth of government, military, and corporate connections. The story of Pennsylvania in the Petén is about American involvement in developing tourism, infrastructure, research stations, training, and the making of Guatemalan heritage citizens. It is also about increasing US government vigilance south of the border after the 1954 CIA-backed coup, whether in forging anti-communist alliances or commercial concessions. Philanthropists supporting Tikal were themselves representatives from US banking, oil, agriculture, aviation, and tourism sectors, making it impossible to disentangle archaeology from industrial and political adventurism. Extractive economies involving archaeology, oil, chicle, and bananas all ferried equipment and products back and forth to the Petén via American boats and planes, along dirt roads and airstrips built by American firms. Sold as the first great city of the Americas and costing almost a million dollars, the resurrection of Tikal underlines the ineluctable dependencies between security, espionage, international politics, corporations, conservation, and donor economies.