Gypsy Jan
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Pre-Colombian hatchets seized in SD returned to Mexico - The artifacts had been taken to Sweden in the 1950s
From The San Diego Union Tribune
By Sandra Dibble
SAN DIEGO - "A pair of copper hatchets dating from pre-Columbian times were given back to Mexico Thursday, five years after they were seized by U.S.
customs agents at the San Diego International Airport.
The hatchets, valued at $3,000, were among 4,000 stolen and looted pieces that were returned by U.S. authorities during a repatriation ceremony at the
Mexican Consulate in El Paso, Texas. These included pre-Colombian statues, an Aztec-era whistle, and a clay anthropomorphic statue dating to the first
millenium A.D.
The items were recovered during 11 investigations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents in California, Arizona, Montana,
Texas, Illinois and Mexico City.
"The plundering of cultural property is one of the oldest forms of organized cross-border crime," said Janice Ayala, assistant director of domestic
operations for ICE's Homeland Security Investigations directorate, in a written statement. "HSI will remain committed to combating the looting and
trafficking of Mexico's cultural treasures."
The copper hatchets were discovered in 2007 in a shipment of 800 coins received at the San Diego International Aiport from Sweden. The shipper told an
ICE investigator that he had inherited the items from his father, a gold coin collector who had lived in Mexico during the mid-1950s, said Lauren
Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE in San Diego.
The shipper told agents he decided to sell the items with the coins because he needed money, but had no idea that they had been taken out of Mexico
illegally.
Specialists at the University of San Diego and the San Diego Museum of Man helped ICE investigators determine that the hatchets came from western
Mesoamerica and dated back to the post-classical period (900 to 1521 A.D.), Mack said. They typically were used as currency to pay for items such as
food and clothing, she said.
The hatchets were deemed to belong to the National Patrimony of Mexico, but there was no way to determine if they had ever been stolen, Mack said.
The hatchets and other items were returned in accordance with a 1970 U.S.-Mexico treaty that "restricts the importation of pre-Colombian artifacts and
colonial-era religious objects to the United States without proper export documents," an ICE statement said."
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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rts551
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GREAT! The number of items that have been taken here in Baja is criminal. I know of arrowheads, pottery, sharks teeth etc that have been take North
to be sold at swapmeets, BAD.
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by rts551
GREAT! The number of items that have been taken here in Baja is criminal. I know of arrowheads, pottery, sharks teeth etc that have been take North
to be sold at swapmeets, BAD. |
What is one supposed to do with a found arrowhead?
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monoloco
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| Quote: | Originally posted by DENNIS
| Quote: | Originally posted by rts551
GREAT! The number of items that have been taken here in Baja is criminal. I know of arrowheads, pottery, sharks teeth etc that have been take North
to be sold at swapmeets, BAD. |
What is one supposed to do with a found arrowhead? |
Legally, you are supposed to leave them where you find
them.
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by monoloco
Legally, you are supposed to leave them where you find them. |
That's like throwing a dead fish back in the water because it's too small.
It would make more sense to me to eat the fish and keep the piece of history as something to display and learn from.
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BajaBruno
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"Looters" are just people who beat the licensed grave robbers to the booty.
Christopher Bruno, Elk Grove, CA.
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redhilltown
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| Quote: | Originally posted by DENNIS
| Quote: | Originally posted by monoloco
Legally, you are supposed to leave them where you find them. |
That's like throwing a dead fish back in the water because it's too small.
It would make more sense to me to eat the fish and keep the piece of history as something to display and learn from. |
Dennis you are obviously not the superstitious type! You can learn from books, photos, friends, and museums... or learn from what you found and then
put it back. What if a petroglyph was on a rock you could easily carry?
And I'm not sure that your analogy is right in that you can't eat obsidian or basalt.
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