Colombia repatriates archaeological heritage – 11/04/2023 – Science

With latex gloves and a white coat, restorer Carla Medina holds part of Colombia’s history in her hands. A growing number of pre-Columbian pieces are recovered from abroad in an unusual way: they are taken by President Gustavo Petro himself.

“It’s a great responsibility and a great privilege,” she said in her laboratory at the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH, for its Spanish acronym).

Medina, 41, analyzes a clay container that returned from Italy and that had to be reconstructed from fragments. She feels grateful for “having the opportunity to access an object that has so many years of history.”

At least 560 pre-Columbian pieces were returned by other countries aboard Petro’s presidential plane, in some of the more than 30 trips abroad he made in just over a year in office.

Most of the items were in the United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Mexico, among other countries, and were repatriated in work coordinated by the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ICANH.

This recovery is part of a strategy of “efficient use of resources”, said the former deputy minister of Multilateral Affairs, Laura Gil, and is progressing at an accelerated pace compared to the previous government, in which only 18 pieces were returned in four years .

‘DECOLONIZATION’

For Catalina Ceballos, director of cultural affairs at the Colombian Foreign Ministry, this is a way to “start talking about decolonization from another perspective.”

Most of the pieces returned to Colombia were removed from the country when there was no legal consensus in the world on the trafficking of archaeological goods. Only since 1997 has Colombian legislation recognized the State as the legitimate owner of the national archaeological heritage.

However, the fight against illegal trafficking in these parts has not been a priority in a country devastated by half a century of armed conflicts between authorities, guerrillas, paramilitary groups and criminal factions. While the budget suggested by the Presidency for ICANH in 2024 is equivalent to around US$2.3 million (R$11.5 million), that proposed for the defense and police areas is almost 600 times greater.

Juan Pablo Ospina, coordinator of the ICANH anthropology group, highlights, however, that under the current government, repatriations have been successful because the presidential plane has been fully available to transport parts “packaged and adequately protected on these trips”.

Recent returns have been made mainly by private collectors on a voluntary basis and require diplomatic work in each country of origin. Subsequently, ICANH is responsible for the registration, cataloguing, transfer, receipt and, in some cases, intervention of the pieces.

As most of them are ceramic, the restoration processes are simpler. “Even though they are very old, they can be very well preserved over time”, says Medina, adding that the most vulnerable are those of an organic nature, such as textiles, paper or wood.

The composition of the materials also offers details about how the first societies in Colombia functioned in relation to their territory, says the restorer.

Most of Colombia’s archaeological treasures are ceramic pieces from different eras and cultures, some 6,000 and 7,000 years old, found in the Caribbean, which are “very old evidence of pottery,” says Ospina.

In other Colombian regions, the use of ceramics dates back to approximately 1,000 BC, present mainly in religious and funerary rites.