[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2194773972.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tConstruction crews building a barrier between the United States and Mexico damaged a 200-foot-long etching of a fish embedded in the land that is thought to be 1,000 years old, according to a report in the Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tAs part of President Donald Trump\u2019s contentious $46.5 billion border-wall project, workers destroyed a 60-to-70-foot portion of the artwork known as an intaglio, according to Richard Martynec, a retired archaeologist who currently surveys the area as a volunteer. As the Post <\/em>report notes, \u201cThe construction is not abiding by environmental laws and other protections, alarming advocates, national park staff and Native Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSatellite imagery from April showed a disturbance crossing the intaglio area, and subsequent imagery last week showed the destruction\u2014\u201cwith bulldozer marks running through about a third of the fish formation.\u201d Upon the publication of the Post<\/em>\u2019s report on Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the damage.<\/p>\n \u201cOn April 23, 2026, a border wall contractor inadvertently disturbed a cultural site known as Las Playas Intaglio, located west of Ajo, Arizona along the border,\u201d John Mennell, a CBP spokesperson, said in a statement. \u201cThe remaining portion of the site has been secured and will be protected in place.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLorraine Marquez Eiler, an elder of the Hia-ced O\u2019odham Indigenous people,\u00a0told the Post<\/em>, \u201cIf someone came to Washington and started destroying all the different sites that people in the United States revere, it\u2019s the same thing for us.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe added, in reference to Trump: \u201cSomebody is responsible for this, and we all know who that is, and he should be held accountable for it. He\u2019s getting away with whatever he wants to do. He\u2019s doing it. No one is stopping him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/border-wall-damages-indigenous-land-art-1234784316\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2194773972.jpg?w=1024″] Construction crews building a barrier between the United States and Mexico damaged a 200-foot-long etching of a fish embedded in the land that is thought to be 1,000 years old, according to a report in the Washington Post. As part of President Donald Trump\u2019s contentious $46.5 billion border-wall project, workers destroyed a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1922350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1922350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1922350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1922350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1922350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}