Mexico City, 22 April 2011
After seven years of judiciary and diplomatic proceedings, Mexico will be given back 49 archaeological pieces illegally introduced on German territory. It is the first shipping of Pre-Hispanic items seized in 2004 in Frankfurt, coming from the Patterson Collection.
The repatriation of the cultural properties was possible thanks to the cooperation between the German government, the Mexican foreign Minister (SRE), the Mexican Director of Public Prosecutions’s Office (PGR) and the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH).
Judiciary and diplomatic proceedings had to be established, presented and ratified before the Mexican Director of Public Prosecutions’s Office. A demand for international judiciary support had to be established as well and the Pre-Hispanic pieces had to be seized.
The German Bureau of Investigation in Hesse decided to return 49 Pre-Hispanic items that had been seized. The shipping took place in Wiesbaden, 20 kilometres from Frankfurt, together with the secretary of the German Science and Arts Ministry: Ingmar Jung, Minister Eva Kühne-Hörmann, Mexican Ambassador in Germany: Francisco Gonzalez Diaz and INAH Head Director: Alfonso de Maria y Campos. They also officially signed the matching protocols.
Within the framework of the federal law on artistic and historic monuments, the foreign Minister, the Director of Public Prosecutions’s Office and the National Anthropology and History Institute have kept working on the restoration of this heritage. Moreover, they reasserted their compromises with regards to saving Mexican cultural items.