Colombia will return 77 artifacts that were in Germany

BOGOTA, Aug. 22 (EFE).- Colombia has recovered 77 artifacts that had been in the hands of private collectors in Germany since the 1970s, the Colombian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

In the course of the recovery process, the photographic record of the 81-piece collection was presented to the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (Icahn), whose archaeologists determined that the 77 pieces “belonged to the archaeological heritage of the nation.” The foreign ministry said in a statement.

With regard to the origin of the pieces, Icahn confirmed that they have clear characteristics related to the patterns of manufacturing ceramic and metal pieces that date back to pre-Hispanic times from the archaeological regions of Tayrona, San Agustin, Guanyi, Kalima and Kimbaya.

The pieces were recovered during negotiations conducted by the Colombian ambassador to Germany, Yadir Salazar, in an interview with the law firm Martini-Mogg-Vogt, which is responsible for managing the inheritance of a German family that announced its acquisition of the pieces in Colombia in 1974.

At the Colombian Consulate General in Frankfurt am Main, Colombia’s Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva and Ambassador Salazar received 77 pre-Columbian objects from private collectors in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The recovery comes two months after Germany delivered pre-Hispanic ritual masks of the Cugoy people to Colombia, on June 16, during Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s visit to Germany.

Last June, the Colombian government handed over to the Cugoy indigenous people the “sun mask” and “great sun mask”, two sacred masks that are part of their cultural heritage and which were in a museum in Germany, where they have been repatriated.

The two Kugoi masks were in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin after they were acquired by Konrad Theodor Preuss around 1915 in Novoaca, on the northern slope of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. These indigenous people credit them with maintaining the balance of nature, the ability to change environmental conditions, and the prevention of disease.

The 77 pre-Hispanic objects add to the 539 objects of the nation’s archaeological and cultural heritage found in Germany, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, recovered during this first year of the reign. President Petro.

Ambassador Salazar continues his efforts to recover the collection of stoneware from the San Agustin culture housed in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.