Mexico City – The Mexican government will ask two U.S. museums to return hundreds of pre-Columbian artifacts that were transported north prior to 1972, an official of the National Anthropology and History Institute said here Tuesday.
Archeologist Julia Bendimez Patterson, who heads the institute’s office in the Mexican state of Baja California, said at a press conference that among the artifacts were stone tools, jars, ceramic pieces, baskets and leather and wood objects that have been kept at the Museum of Man in San Diego and at the Museum of the University of California, Los Angeles.
She explained that all the to-be-requested pieces were taken from Mexico before the entry into force of the 1972 law governing protection and conservation of archeological and historical monuments and other objects.
Bendimez said that the request for the artifacts would be made in the course of binational meetings and she expressed confidence that they quickly would be returned to Mexico.
She also offered a preview of this week’s event to present recent archeological finds in the three Californias, the U.S. state and the Mexican jurisdictions of Baja California and Baja California Sur.
The two-day presentation is set to begin Thursday at Mexico’s National Anthropology Museum.
The director of that institution, Felipe Solis, said at the same press conference that some of the pieces date back about 3,000 years.
He added that in contrast to the archeology of central Mexico, which includes huge ceremonial buildings, in the northern part of the country the archeological finds usually have included objects from daily life, such as hunting and fishing equipment and other tools.
