The yoke of sedimented stone returned by Austria to Mexico.INAH
Paralyzing an auction of pre-Hispanic art is almost always mission impossible, but that almost maintains the hope that the efforts will eventually bear fruit, and this time they have paid off. Mexico has recovered on Tuesday a millenary yoke of sedimented stone that was in Austria, where it was about to be auctioned a year ago, on March 11, 2022, by the Zacke Gallery. The Mexican ambassador in the territory, Luis Javier Campuzano, then managed to paralyze the bidding, and a year later the piece has returned to its country of origin.
"In a gesture of empathy and corporate responsibility, the representatives of the auction house offered to contact the owners of the piece with the intention of facilitating the voluntary delivery of the piece," the Mexican government thanked at the time. The object, originally from the coast of Veracruz, isa votive or schematic representation of the typical hip protector used by the participants of the Mesoamerican ball game ritual. According to experts, the product made of stone was used as a mold to make a leather yoke that would later be filled with cotton, they explain in the catalog of the auction house. The leather elaboration would serve as a shock absorber of the blows of the ball, which would bounce off the body of the players.
The piece, dated between 400 and 900 AD, was part of the private collection of a collector from Kentucky, in the United States, who had previously acquired it from art dealer Martin Doustar through the international Parcours des Mondes exhibition in Paris, in 2016. It is unknown, however, how it first came into Doustar's hands, and how and when it left Mexico.
The yoke recovered through the Embassy of Mexico in Austria.INAH
With a weight of 16.8 kilograms and dimensions of 41x34.5 centimeters, the tecali stone yoke has sculpted on its surface known as Monster of the Earth or Tlaltecuhtli, in Nahuatl language. A similar piece auctioned in Paris in 2021 was sold for 75,000 euros (about 82,000 dollars), although the bidding for this new archaeological discovery was going to start at 4,000, and was estimated to be worth 8,000 euros ($8,700 at current exchange rates).
The success of the paralysis of this auction contrasts with the general trend every time the authorities are aware of a bid in a Western country, since what in Mexican legislation is clearly illegal is protected by the local laws of the States in which the purchase and sale of these pieces takes place. The outcome of recovery attempts depends, to a large extent, on the willingness of the governments of the third countries where the goods appear to cooperate.
Among the States most predisposed to return is Italy, with which Mexico has maintained intense communication in recent years. In 2021, in fact, the sale of 17 archaeological objects in the country was paralyzed. Austria, on the other hand, has starred in some disagreements with the Mexican Government on account of the Penacho de Moctezuma, in the country since the sixteenth century and exhibited in the Ethnographic Museum of Vienna since the nineteenth century. The specialists consider that the marked wear of the piece prevents the transport from one country to another, since it is impossible to cancel the vibrations of the displacement, but Mexico is not satisfied with the explanation.
The restitution of these pieces has become the main workhorse of the foreign cultural policy of the López Obrador administration. Since the beginning of the legislature and until March of this year, the authorities have managed to repatriate more than 11,500 assets abroad, to which this millenary yoke is now added.
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