• It is about pots, vases and funerary containers of high cultural value that were in the possession of a Colombian citizen living in Peru.

 

  • The Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (El Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia ICANH in Spanish) will be in charge of safekeeping and preservation of the material.


The joint action of the Attorney General’s Office, the Directorate of Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ICANH and the Ministry of Culture made it possible to recover and repatriate six Colombian archaeological pieces that were in Peru.

It is about a clay jar and a funerary tripod of the Tierradentro culture, which was in Cauca territory from 1000 BC until the Spanish conquest; a bowl, a pot and a funerary vase with two wildcats from the Pupiales community which came from and precede ‘Los Pastos’ culture that lived in the border area with Ecuador in three different periods from 1 to 1700 AD; and a Quimbaya funerary pot, an indigenous group that was located in the area currently known as the coffee-growing region between 300 BC and 300 AD.

The authorities of Peru detected and alerted that the archaeological material was going to be transferred by a Colombian citizen from Peru to Chile. The owner was contacted through diplomatic and administrative channels, and stated that he had received it from a relative in 2008 as part of an inheritance.



After the investigations carried out by prosecutors of the Thematic Group for the Protection of Intellectual Property, Telecommunications and Cultural Assets belonging to the Specialized Directorate against Violations of Human Rights; and the analyses carried out by experts from the Ministry of Culture, the authenticity of the pieces was confirmed, and it was also determined that they were pre-Hispanic assets of Colombian origin with great cultural, historical and heritage value.

The owner handed the archaeological objects over to the employees of the Decentralized Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru in Pucallpa on September 2nd of this year. These were subsequently handed over to the plenipotentiary minister, Eufracio Morales, who is the diplomatic official of the Embassy of Colombia in Peru.

A member of the Technical Investigative Corps (Cuerpo Técnico de Investigación CTI in Spanish) traveled to Lima and returned the pre-Columbian pieces to Colombia. In a public ceremony held at the main headquarters of the Attorney General’s Office, these were handed over to the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia ICANH in Spanish) which will keep them in the light, humidity and temperature conditions which are necessary for their optimal conservation.

Due to these inter-institutional efforts, it is recognized the cultural diversity, history and ancestral knowledge to build our nation. 

The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004.