A diplomatic bag to repatriate archaeological treasures stolen from Mexico

What can a diplomatic bag contain?

In the case of Mexico, true treasures.

The Chancellery Museum, housed in an old convent of the viceroyalty located in the historic center of the Mexican capital, has mounted an exhibition that brings together for the first time more than 150 archaeological pieces recovered from abroad through intense diplomatic work, many of them They are transported through diplomatic suitcases from headquarters located in the United States, Germany, France or the Netherlands.

The jewels from a looting that return to Mexican territory and that include some objects that are thousands of years old.

“This is just a taste, just a very small piece, of everything that has been recovered through different means, because we are talking about more or less 15,000 pieces having been rescued,” explains Rafael Toriz, director of Visual Arts at the Foreign Ministry. from Mexico.

The work of Toriz and Rodrigo Fernández de Gortari, curator of the exhibition, has been intense and would arouse envy in any archeology lover: these two men rummaged through hundreds of boxes containing the thousands of pieces recovered from half the world, which have been protected in the warehouses of the cultural institutions of Mexico and under the zeal of officials who protect this heritage.

The works have stories that could be implausible, worthy of a detective novel, as is the case of the so-called

Portal of the Underworld

, which is undoubtedly the most sought-after Olmec jewel by the Mexican authorities, a monumental relief stolen in Mexican territory more than 50 years old.

"For more than five decades, this piece was sought by the Mexican State, which in 2006 proposed to offer the holders of the archaeological treasure 'a fiberglass replica and a formal thank you,' with the attentive request that the sculpture of origin Olmec will return to our country,” explained Jorge Islas López, Consul General of Mexico in New York, in a book that will be published in March and that brings together the history of the so-called “cultural diplomacy” of Mexico.

Rafael Toriz and Rodrigo Fernández de Gortari, curators of the exhibition. Aggi Garduño

López Islands narrates that in 1934 a storm fell in Chalcatzingo, Morelos, which revealed a series of works carved in stone that experts had never seen, including the Olmec jewel.

The piece was stolen in the 1950s and according to one of the witnesses to that looting, cited by the diplomat, it was transported in pieces and sold in the United States, in packaging that would not arouse the suspicions of the customs authorities.

The also called

Monster of the Earth

ended up in the hands of a wealthy American family and the Mexican Foreign Ministry believes that the work was purchased at the time for 12.5 million dollars.

The monument, 3,000 years old and weighing more than 1,000 kilograms, returned to the country after long negotiations with the US authorities and under the threat of prosecuting its owners for illegal trafficking.

In the end, the collectors returned it and the relic is exhibited in the so-called House of Cortés, the palace that the conqueror had built in Cuernavaca.

The exhibition at the Chancellery Museum opens symbolically with a diplomatic suitcase as a way for the authorities to honor the work of dozens of diplomats to repatriate stolen works.

Some have also been given voluntarily by collectors upon learning that they are part of Mexican heritage.

Among the works on display is the so-called

Columnilla de Santa Rosa Xtampak

, from Campeche, which is shown in the packaging box in which it was recovered.

The curators explain in the exhibition that Xtampak means “old walls” in Mayan and the 26 kilo work is a fragment of a palace column that shows the

Jaguar of the Underworld

, a supernatural being that represented the sun.

The work was delivered by an Austrian collector in 2022. Another of the relics is a relief dedicated to the cult of the dead, called

Tzompantli from Chichén Itzá

, which in Nahuatl means “altar of skulls.”

Pikes were placed on these platforms on which the heads of enemies were skewered and, according to the curators of the exhibition, archaeologists have found more than 500 skulls chiseled in high relief in this type of carving.

Among the recovered pieces is also a small face sculpted in stone, whose owner ordered a setting made in the shape of two snakes to wear it as a necklace, an eccentricity, without a doubt, but so exotic and precious that this woman surely wore it with elegant pride. .

When observing the exhibition, the visitor may feel astonished to see that very rich people paid a fortune to possess looted works, which are part of an enormous heritage that has not yet been fully recovered, jewels from Mexico that continue to be auctioned in auction houses. auctioned in New York or Paris, or that adorn the living rooms of millionaires around the world.

“The idea is that people know these pieces that have returned to their place of origin, because everyone knows that they are here from photos in the press, but they do not know the path they took and that they are part of their own history,” says Fernández de Gortari, the exhibition's curator.

Visitors observe pieces from the exhibition, on February 21. Aggi Garduño

Mexico has undertaken a major offensive from the political, diplomatic and legal front, which the Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has turned into its main foreign cultural policy asset.

The Government's strategy is not exempt from criticism, mainly due to the president's incendiary speech when accusing European nations of looting or mobilizing the controversial National Guard to recover pre-Hispanic pieces.

So far, the offensive has had relevant achievements, such as the recovery of more than 15,000 archaeological pieces or Ralph Lauren's decision to remove a collection of bags that copied the traditional Mexican serape.

“Cultural diplomacy is a strategy that the Foreign Ministry has to rescue and value culture as an agent of political and even economic power, so that Mexico once again has these pieces of such great historical value,” explains Rafael Toriz.

The exhibition, called

A Halo of Splendor

, will be open until March and visitors will be able to enjoy the Mexican archaeological wealth and the exciting story of a handful of diplomats absorbed in returning their jewelry to the country in a diplomatic suitcase.

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