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cColombia managed to repatriate a total of 16 archaeological pieces belonging to the cultures of the country’s indigenous peoples who were in Switzerland and New Zealand, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
From Switzerland, a country with which Colombia maintained an “Agreement concerning the import and return of cultural property”, 15 artifacts were repatriated.
Regarding these pieces, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) identified that “one corresponds to a tabloid from Cauca Medio and the other 15 are votive pieces of goldsmithing with which Muisca settlers, “who lived in the eastern highlands from 800 BC until the arrival of the Iberian conquerors in the 16th century, carried out different ritual events.”
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These included ceramics and metalwork pieces from the Quimbaya and Muisca archaeological regions. The official delivery was made to Ambassador Francisco Echeverri by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture.
lto remaining piece, a medium-sized globular ceramic vessel, was returned from New Zealand. The return of the ceramic element associated with the Alto Magdalena region was possible due to the voluntary surrender of a citizen, ICANH detailed.
He return of these goods It materialized thanks to the collaboration of the Colombian Embassies abroad, the General Directorate of Protocol, and the Military House of the Presidency.
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According to the Vice Minister of Multilateral Affairs, Elizabeth Taylor Jay, “we had a constitutional mandate through article 72 of the Political Constitution, which defined that mechanisms should be established to reacquire the cultural heritage of the nation that was in the hands of private individuals”.
Finally, archeology and conservation professionals from ICANH will carry out new analyzes to evaluate the state of all the pieces to corroborate “its belonging to the archaeological heritage of the nation.”
