Culture Ministry denounces planned US auction of Mexican artifacts

Mexico’s Culture Ministry powerfully denounced an online auction successful the United States of artifacts it considers portion of Mexico’s archaeological heritage.

Organized by the Artemis Gallery successful Louisville, Colorado, and scheduled for this Thursday, the auction seeks to merchantability disconnected pieces of pre-Columbian root and ethnographic significance.

Following an investigation conducted by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), astatine slightest 47 objects connected connection are portion of the nationalist taste heritage, protected by the Federal Law connected Archaeological, Artistic, and Historical Monuments and Zones. According to this law, they are inalienable assets and spot of the nation.

“The pre-Columbian and ethnographic pieces that are intended for merchantability are vestiges of our ancestral cultures and nationalist history; they represent a surviving representation of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico,” Culture Minister Claudia Curiel de Icaza said, describing the planned auction arsenic “an onslaught connected the country’s representation and taste identity.”

Curiel reported that Mexico has initiated ineligible enactment for the U.S. auction location to halt the sale, citing respect for the ethical and taste values ​​represented by these pieces. 

Furthermore, the authorities is seeking to repatriate the objects to Mexico and combat the illicit trafficking of taste spot successful compliance with nationalist authorities and planetary treaties.

Under the banner #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende (My Heritage Is Not For Sale), the Culture Ministry reiterated its argumentation of actively defending Mexico’s archaeological, creator and humanities heritage, denouncing that the commercialization of these assets is taste dispossession that undermines the representation of Indigenous communities.

This lawsuit is the latest of recurring attempts by overseas countries to auction Mexican archaeological pieces. In March 2024, the aforesaid creation assemblage auctioned archaeological assets associated with the Maya and Teotihuacán cultures. The items included zoomorphic figurines, vessels made of modeled clay, mirrors inlaid with greenish chromatic and fragments of sculptures. 

In April, the Culture Ministry denounced the auction “Auction 104. African, Asian, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art,” organized by auction location Zemanek Münster, successful Germany, which sold 17 Mexican archaeological artifacts. 

With reports from Infobae and La Jornada