(Berlin) Germany on Friday handed over to Mexico and Guatemala several objects and sculptures more than millennia from the Mayan period concealed in 2007 by a private individual in his cellar before being unearthed last year by the police.
The 13 pieces, whose authenticity has been certified, consist of figurines, plates or glasses shaped between 250 and 850 AD by the Mayan people.
The ceremony took place in Berlin, in the representation of the Saxony-Anhalt region where they were unearthed last year.
Its president Reiner Haselhoff presented them to the Guatemalan ambassadors Jorge Lemcke Arevalo and Mexican Francisco Quiroga.
Eleven of them were produced in what is now Guatemala and two figurines come from Teotihuacan, the largest city in pre-Columbian America located about forty kilometers from Mexico City.
“This gives us hope that other owners of similar objects will take the same path” by returning them, said Mr. Lemcke Arevalo at a press conference. His Mexican colleague spoke of an “exemplary” gesture from the Land.
“The illegal trade in cultural goods must be avoided and fought,” said Mr. Haselhoff, adding that he also wanted to raise public awareness.
“Objects stolen by looters from graves or from former settlements are not only in museums, but can also be found in our cellars or attics,” he said.
Wrapped in newspaper
As in the case of these 13 objects. Police found them on a farm in Klötze in Saxony-Anhalt, a region in the east of the country.
In 2007, its former owner had buried in his cellar two rifles dating from the Second World War that had belonged to his grandfather, as well as the objects in question.
Claiming to want to come into line with justice and give them these weapons, whose possession is illegal, he contacted the police in 2020 and told them the place where he had buried them.
The police had found the rifles, and to their amazement and that of the new owner, also the artifacts wrapped in newspaper, the prosecution said.
No legal proceedings were opened, the facts falling within the scope of the statute of limitations, he added.
According to the Land of Saxony-Anhalt, the objects were probably stolen by grave robbers in Guatemala and Mexico before being sold on the black market.
The man had claimed to have no idea of their origin or their real value. According to several German media outlets, he said he bought them for less than C $ 150 at a flea market in Leipzig in 2003.
On the art market, small figurines are sold between 1,500 and 2,000 euros each ($ 2,150 to $ 2,900), according to expert documents released during the conference.
Auctions of artifacts from this period are not uncommon in Germany. By September, a Munich house had put up for sale more than 300, all accompanied by certificates proving that they were legally in Germany.
The operation had provoked protests from several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean for which they belong to their heritage, according to a joint letter from ambassadors of these states in Germany.
“The cultural heritage of a country must not be put on sale,” the Mexican ambassador reaffirmed on Friday.