Page 293 - The Secret Museum

technology developed by NASA called ‘decorrelation stretch’. This software is used

to fill in missing colours in pixel images taken from space by exaggerating colour
differences. Hidden details of the original painting and rich colour passages were
drawn out of the sun-bleached lienzo to create an illustration, close to how the
original lienzo would have looked when first painted.

It turned out that the black outlines were originally filled in with two shades of
yellow – a strong yellow for jaguar-headed serpents, a light yellow in the reed mats
under ruling couples; blue for water and women’s shirts; red for buildings; brown for
flesh; grey for eagles and green in the hills. Two copies were made, one for

Tlapiltepec, one for the ROM.

The ROM made contact with the people of Tlapiltepec to find out how they would
feel about having their lienzo copied and displayed. Arni explained to me that, given
that the lienzo had been stolen from the village, ‘it was a strange situation. I was kind
of nervous about the village asking for it back. I kept wondering if there was
resentment or animosity there about the lienzo having been taken from them, but there
doesn’t seem to be any. They still think of the lienzo as important, but maybe they
don’t feel empowered enough to ask for it back. We hope they feel it’s being well

looked after here.’

The new illustration is on show in the ROM, hung vertically on a specially
constructed freestanding wall of its own. The people of Tlapiltepec wrote back to
say that the ROM’s decision to share their knowledge of the lienzo with the public
was to perform ‘activity we consider to be one of the most noble that human beings
can realize, and it fills us with pride to know that the lienzo of Tlapiltepec stands
among the cultural expressions that are displayed over there.’ While the original
slumbers in storage, the colourful copy is being woven into the history of the world.