February 24, 2022
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO — Two Dutch citizens
have returned 17 Mexican archaeological artifacts after three decades in their
possession, the foreign ministry said in a statement Sunday.
The return of the artifacts comes as Mexico
works to recover thousands of archeological pieces that had been illegally
removed from the country — 6,000 have come back so far, according to official
figures.
The couple had the artifacts in their
possession for more than 30 years. It was only when De Boer and Mellis visited
an exhibition of Aztec artifacts at the Museum of Ethnography in the city of
Leiden that they realized how important this cultural wealth was for Mexicans. It’s
not clear how the two came into possession of the objects, which include a few
small human figurines and which were made between the years 400 and 1521.
The 17 artifacts returned were verified as authentic by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History. During this process, they discovered that the objects came from a variety of Indigenous groups across pre-Columbian history. The artifacts were made by Huastec, Mexica, and Mixtec peoples. These artifacts are not emblems of a lost history—the people who created them have ancestors who still live in Mexico, speak their native languages, and continue to make art.
They were previously certified as authentic by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and came from multiple regions throughout the country, including along the Gulf coast, the central plains and the southeast. “The pieces were made using the modeling, smoothing, incision and pastillage application technique,” the foreign ministry said, referring to craft styles.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has
called out France for continuing to allow the unregulated sale of cultural
heritage items from other countries after a recent sale of archaeological pieces
from pre-Columbian Mexico. He also denounced Austria’s possession of a crown of
feathers believed to have belonged to 16th-century Aztec emperor Moctezuma
which several Mexican governments have sought to have returned.
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