Another auction of Mexican pre-Hispanic pieces, which the Government accuses of illegal, has been held this Monday in Europe. The millionaire bid has been held in Munich, Germany, despite the claim of the authorities of the Latin American country. “We reaffirm our message to the German auction house Gerhard Hirsch and its collectors: no to illicit trafficking in cultural heritage. No to this colonial and criminal practice ”, the spokesman for the Presidency demanded this Tuesday, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas.
The fight to recover the auctioned sculptures began a week ago. The Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) filed a complaint with the Mexican prosecutor’s office to take legal action against the commercialization of the objects. “The sale of these pieces constitutes a crime under Mexican law and also encourages and contributes to trafficking and organized transnational crime,” argued the head of Culture, Alejandra Frausto, in a statement issued last Monday, September 13. The minister also requested diplomatic assistance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to recover the objects “in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on the measures to be adopted to prohibit and prevent the illicit import, export and transfer of property of cultural property. 1970 ”.
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Frausto also sent a letter to the Gerhard Hirsch Nachfolger Society, but it was not heard. In the letter he explained why, in his opinion, the auction should be stopped: “The INAH made an opinion on archeology through which 74 archaeological pieces were identified in the auction catalog that are property of the Mexican nation, of in accordance with the Federal Law on Monuments and Archaeological Zones ”. According to the auction catalog, the objects are offered for an initial price ranging from 150 euros (about 3,500 pesos) to 100,000 euros (about 2.3 million pesos).
The sculptures belong to a collection of 324 pieces from the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru. Eleven ambassadors from the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GRULAC) joined the lawsuit to suspend the bidding. “We consider that it may be damaging the legal order of our countries, international law, especially the international treaties on this matter approved within the framework of UNESCO,” they stated this Monday in a joint statement at the Mexican Embassy in Germany.
The diplomats appealed to “German public opinion, its authorities and respected commercial institutions, to understand that what is being traded, in addition to being supported by questionable legal bases, seriously damages the fundamental rights of our countries.”
For a couple of years, Mexico has embarked on a crusade to recover the historical heritage found in private collections around the world, mainly in Europe. Just this Sunday the Italian authorities suspended the auction of 17 archaeological pieces claimed by the Government. In June, German citizens voluntarily delivered a total of 34 archaeological pieces to the Mexican Embassy in Berlin. However, in February, despite government attempts to stop an auction of 30 pieces of pre-Hispanic art, a bid was held in Paris, France.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/mexico-claims-74-pre-hispanic-pieces-auctioned-in-germany/
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