 On 24 April 1931 , Guatemala declared the site as a National Monument under the name of Tzaculeu . On 23 February 1946 , the site was renamed as Zaculeu . The government gave a license to excavate to the United Fruit Company , which immediately began archaeological excavations and related restorations of the structures under the direction of John M. Dimick . This later included re @-@ coating a number of the buildings with white plaster , as it was known that many were originally finished that way . This has seldom been done in other restorations of Pre @-@ Columbian buildings . 
