The Templo Mayor Museum exhibits two Nahua pieces repatriated from NY

Two Mexica or Nahua sculptures, dating from 1325-1521, which were illegally extracted from the country and remained as decorations in the homes of collectors in New York, were repatriated and delivered to the collection of the Templo Mayor Museum, where they will remain for three months on temporary exhibition; Both are part of the historic collection of “the largest number of assets recovered” by Mexico abroad.

The pre-Hispanic objects, in excellent condition, that are exhibited in the exhibition New York Repatriation: Mexican Pieces Back Home, inaugurated yesterday in the entrance hall to the Templo Mayor, under the Liga bridge, “they add to the more than 2,100 cultural objects that have been recovered in the current administration. Having both pieces means healing those wounds implied by looting, the scourge that constitutes the illicit sale of cultural goods that are part of our identity, heritage and common heritage,” said Jaime Alejandro Bautista Valdespino, deputy director of the Registry of Archaeological Monuments and Furniture of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

He added that other repatriated pieces have been distributed to other museums such as Monte Albán or the Regional Museum of Chiapas. They are goods “that for some reason were outside our border,” he reiterated.

Jorge Islas, former consul general of Mexico in New York, referred to the meticulous process to return the pieces to their place of origin: “between 2019 and 2024, the consulate general of Mexico in New York managed to recover more than 2,400 archaeological assets of Mesoamerican origin, belonging to different periods in the history of our ancestors and indigenous peoples that make up a very important part of what the country is as a plural society. multicultural and multiethnic.

This was possible, he added, “thanks to the implementation of novel legal and diplomatic methods that allowed us to recover part of our history and narrative. These magnificent pieces today formally return to the place from which they should never have left,” he highlighted.

On November 9, 2023, “the Cultural Institute of Mexico in New York received 14 pieces, in which case were these two, which were determined in accordance with the regulations by the INAH, which were identified as archaeological monuments of Mexican origin and were then returned in accordance with the terms of delivery, which lasted months.”

This “recovery was formally made public on November 14, 2023, on the International Day against Illicit Trafficking in Cultural Property,” Islas added.

Miguel Ángel Reyes Moncayo, alternate legal consultant for international contentious matters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), explained that in the 16 months that this administration has been in office, 3,556 archaeological pieces have been recovered, of which almost 2,100 have been delivered to the INAH, while the rest are in the process of being transferred, “because they cannot just be put in a box, but require packaging and special care.”

He highlighted that in Miami, a batch of almost 4,000 pieces was recovered, and another in Tucson, with just over 2,100 objects.

The Mexica or Nahua pieces on display are an anthropomorphic standard bearer called star warrior, sculpted in stuccoed volcanic rock (1.64 by 57 by 39 centimeters), while the other represents a macehual and is made of painted volcanic rock (1.15 by 26.4 by 17.5 centimeters).