Description:
IN THE EARLY SUMMER Of 1974, Peter Mathews and Linda Schele asked for permission from the Departamento de Monumentos Prehispánicos of the Instituto National de Antropologia e Historia for permission to enter the bodega at Palenque to look for unpublished inscriptions. Our intentions were to complete a long-standing project begun by Peter Mathews to collect all existing Palenque inscriptions. Several days after our request, we were informed by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma that the Consejo de Monumentos Prehispánicos had decided to ask us to catalogue the entire bodega. We were informed of the procedures necessary to complete the work and briefed on the law and restrictions imposed by the Mexican authorities on those who work in archaeological zones. Permission for the cataloguing project extended until the 31 st of August, 1974, and was renewed for a brief period in December, 1974, for the purpose of taking color transparencies.

The nature of our problems became evident very quickly. On entering the bodega, we discovered that the walls were lined with four one-meter-deep shelves. The room is extremely damp; it has no interior lights, only a few small windows, and is located immediately adjacent to the generators that until recently ran the lights in the museum and the tomb. There were many times when we thought we would be asphyxiated by the generator fumes. The objects in the bodega were piled deeply on each shelf, and also on the floor under the bottom shelf. The center of the room is occupied by a two-meter-by-three-meter set of shelves which, like the wall shelves, were fully loaded with objects.

The bodega is a small room located in the eastern section of the museum building. This location led to a continuous involvement with interested tourists who were visiting the museum and to distractions that were not always welcome. Moreover, the final two weeks ofJune was a period of continuous rain, forcing us to rely on electronic lights and 500-volt batteries. Fortunately, the batteries lasted for the duration of the rainy period, and thereafter we were able to work with sunlight as our major lighting source. - From Introduction