The looting of archaeological artifacts in Mexico predates the arrival of Europeans. “Long before the coming of European colonizers, precious objects were highly sought after,” Jacome Hernandez explained. “The Aztecs, for example, explored ancient sites such as Teotihuacán not for scientific purposes but to take their treasures and legitimize certain myths.” This quest for valuable artifacts intensified with European colonization, particularly with the discovery of gold-bearing objects.

One emblematic example is Moctezuma’s headdress, a unique piece made of quetzal feathers, now housed in the Weltmuseum in Vienna. “Some say it was a gift from Moctezuma to Cortes,” said Jacome Hernandez. “The headdress is still in Austria. It is one of many pieces that left Mexico soon after first contact with Europeans and never returned.”

The extent of the looting of Mexico’s cultural treasures is difficult to determine. “Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia officially registers 49,347 archaeological sites. If you plant a tree or move some earth for an archaeological dig, you’re likely to find something!” Jacome Hernandez said.

It is not unusual for impoverished farmers to sell what they find to interested buyers. Such looting can reach massive proportions. Jacome Hernandez recalls a case from the 1980s in which looters hired locals to carry out more than 70 raids over a period of more than six months, bringing out an immense quantity of archaeological finds.

The main problem with looting, Jacome Hernandez pointed out, is that the looters are focused on an object’s aesthetic value and destroy the archaeological context, erasing centuries of cultural history. “All the archaeological value that we treasure as heritage is lost,” he lamented.

The winding road to protecting Mexico’s archaeological heritage

Recognition of the need to protect Mexico’s heritage is relatively recent. It was not until Mexico became a nation and a sense of nationhood emerged that the first laws were passed in 1868. Their purpose was to ban private ownership of archaeological objects but their impact was limited.

At the time, it was common for foreign archaeologists, supported by institutions such as the Carnegie Institute and the University of California, to send artifacts abroad for study and never return them to their place of origin. Within Mexico, artists and intellectuals such as Rufino Tamayo and Diego Rivera also amassed collections of artifacts, which had often been looted and obtained “by chance” from local farmers.

It was not until 1972 that stricter legislation was introduced to protect archaeological monuments and objects. However, complete control has proved elusive. “Today, museums and academic institutions around the world argue that the pieces in their possession left Mexico before 1972, since the laws aren’t retroactive,” Jacome Hernandez said. “So some museums have hundreds of items and we can’t demand their return.”

Recently, under the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, there have been calls for stronger heritage protection measures. Thanks to UNESCO conventions that recognize the heritage of nations as part of the common heritage of humanity, over 10,000 archaeological pieces have been returned to Mexico in recent years.

The regulations have also changed. Researchers must now register the pieces they want to study, specify what will be exported, and undertake to return them within one year after the analysis. For more advanced scientific studies involving invasive testing, such as isotopic analysis or radiocarbon dating, researchers may take a sample but are still required to submit a final report and return the artifacts they borrowed for their studies.

The long process of repatriation

The process of returning artifacts is a lengthy one. “When the university wanted to return a single box containing the remains of the child last year, the procedures took over two years,” recalls Jacome Hernandez. Considerable paperwork was involved. Among other things, they had to obtain a feasibility study from a Mexican expert to assess the authenticity and value of the objects, and coordinate with Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), the government and foreign affairs authorities.

A repatriation request can be made by an institution or a private individual. In the case of the 84 Mesoamerican axes, an individual wanted to return them after loaning them to Princeton University. He contacted the Mexican consulate, which handled the administrative procedures with INAH.

“At that point the legal director sets all the legal procedures in motion,” Jacome Hernandez explained. “It’s a rigorous process based on Mexican laws on archaeological heritage and cultural property, as well as various international treaties.” A Mexican archaeologist then validates the archaeological pieces and recommends whether or not they should be returned, based on photographs.

The pieces of pottery and other household items that were turned in are estimated to be 2,000 years old.

From Seattle to Mexico, soon, pieces of pottery and other household items that are thousands of years old will be headed home. 

On Tuesday, at the Mexican consulate in Seattle, Homeland Security Investigations special agents started unwrapping an unsuspecting box. 

Inside, wrapped in tissue paper sat artifacts estimated to be thousands of years old. 

"These things-- they were Mexican before Mexico was Mexico," Mexico's head consul, Hector Godoy, said. 

The different pieces of pottery and figurines caught the eyes of Homeland Security Investigations when the most recent owner turned them in. 

"These things have been passed along from family to family; these things have obviously been on the earth for almost 2,000 years. They've changed hands several times," HSI Special Agent Robert Hammer said. "Sometimes good citizens come forward and say we've come into these things, and we're not supposed to have these things and we'd like to make it right."

Godoy said he can probably guess how ancient items from Mesoamerica ended up in Seattle.

"I think there was more of a laissez-faire attitude towards archeological pieces in the early 1900s, which meant that many of these very valuable pieces were actually-- left Mexico and come into the hands of private individuals," Godoy said. 

In fact, an article from the Sunday News Tribune in 1960 showcases these artifacts under the sub-headline "2 Lakewood Explorers Find Artifacts On Mexican Trip."

The picture accompanying the article bears the caption that says a Tacoma explorer named Arnold Snell "brought back" the items from "remote Chiapas province in Mexico."

Could anyone help me figure out the relation of colours in cardinal directions for the Maya?

Most of the source I've came across (Post-classic as most Maya related soruces) seem to agree on White-North, Red-East, Yellow-South, Black-West.

I've alsot found a pdf by Erik Boot studying a Late Classic bowl suggesting the same relation. So I suppose the above is the correct relation?

On the same note, why is it that various (modern) depictions put Red/East on top of a " map compass"? In other words they seem to rotate the cardinals 90 degrees anti-clockwise.

https://preview.redd.it/3s7iw9azkx3e1.png?width=347&format=png&auto=webp&s=be1805a6f4ffc8deeea1e10a25fb77c0d28a6cf7

(**EDIT TO ADD: Photo is NOT my own. It is of a Tandoor Oven most likely from India)

Many years ago, I was in southern Mexico in the state of Oaxaca. I was able to visit some interesting places where pottery was being made and fired. We are talking cottage industry and they were making ceramic pottery chimeneas of all sizes up to 5-6 feet tall.

At one point I got to see locals cooking for their families. A group of families had several clay ovens that were basically large clay pots built into a masonry structure like a large table with the fire and food accessed through the top of the pot. They were cooking tortillas by sticking them to the side and then pulling them off the walls with long sticks/rods.

Years later I saw videos and pictures of Tandoor ovens from India and other nearby cultures, and it looked exactly as I remembered seeing in Oaxaca.

Is there a name for this kind of oven/cooking in southern Mexico or Mesoamerica? Did they have their own version of the Tandoor ovens or was there some kind of cultural interchange that brought this to Mesoamerica?

Just a little correlation I thought was VERY interesting;

Hermes Trismegistus was a “mythological” figure in ancient Egyptian culture. Known for primarily two things…

1. The EMERALD Tablets (life)
2. A WINGED Staff named “Caduceus” (wisdom)

2a. “ Hermes created the caduceus when he threw his staff at TWO FIGHTING SNAKES, who stopped fighting and wrapped themselves around the staff “

———

Now we flip to Aztec culture:

Ometechutli & Omecihuatl are credited as;

“ The Aztec creation goddess Omeciuatl (Omecihuatl) created all life on Earth with her husband, Ometecuhtli. Together they were seen as the male and female aspects of a single “Lord of Duality,” Ometeotl. As the androgynous Ometeotl, they ruled over the home of the gods, called Omeyocan (“Two Place”). Through their unification; they then create/birth a being named; Quetzalcoatl

Quetzalcoatl is known as the “Feathered Serpent”. Furthermore being depicted as two things…

1. An EMERALD quetzal bird (life)
2. The SERPENT (wisdom)

——————————————————-

In my conclusion; I just wanted to express the fact that our ancestors weren’t these MONSTERS they try to paint them to be. Nor were they idiots by any means.

They were in a constant struggle of Male/Female - Dark/Light - Good/Evil just like you and I are today… They passed the answers down to us; now how will we use it?

The Egyptians and Our Ancestors were thousands of miles away from each other but gave life to the same questions and answers (through their own retrospects of course). It is upon us to decipher their meanings

I am looking into booking a tour of Chichen Itza, Tulum, Tikal, and Palenque for my husbands birthday/Christmas present. He is really into Mayan ruins and has been wanting to go on a trip like this for a long time. Is it possible to do these sites in 7 days or less (we have 2 little ones that I don't want to leave for longer)? Is travel to these areas safe? Are there any tour companies to avoid?

https://www.livescience.com/lidar-maya-civilization-guatemala

Hi everyone, it's my first time posting here but recently I've been having a bit of an identity crisis and I've wondered if anyone here shares a similar experience or feeling that I do.

All my life I've been told that I'm white passing, and I understand in the sense that I do not have much melanin, but I've always been singled out when people look at me (especially in my area) and see that I'm Mexican. I've had many racist encounters, I remember my first racist encounter being when I was five years old by a school teacher and student, and I've been told before "tienes cara de nopal". I guess these encounters, in addition to being told I'm white passing, have made me question my appearance. I've always struggled with my appearance, and I've struggled with facial and body dysmorphia since I can remember, but the question of my racial and ethnic appearance has always haunted me. Do I even look Mexican, much less, indigenous from Mexico? Am I really white passing?

Recently I took an ancestry DNA test where it revealed that I'm 50% indigenous mexica (possibly descended from a Chichimeca tribe), with 24% Spanish and 11% Basque, the rest being less than 3%. I've always figured I'd have some indigenous ancestry, given my parents and grandparents are from Mexico, but I think the results from this test have sent me further into a spiral of questioning my identity. I don't quite know how to describe it, but it's almost a feeling of longing and a desire to fit in somewhere.

I've talked to others before in my community about how we question what life would have been like if colonization never happened in the Americas, and we question how different or similar our lives could have been if it were the case. Being aware just how much indigenous dna I have (my mom has like 70 - 80% mexica dna), it's made me wonder what tribe we descended from, why and how we stopped being part of the community (though I'm we'll aware of the historical success the Spaniards had in converting many indigenous groups to Catholicism), and could I still try and reconnect with that part of me or is it too late and would it be cultural appropriation by now?

These are things I've been thinking about since childhood, and with more frequency recently after receiving my DNA results. This could also be due to not having seen my family in Mexico for five years now, and I am feeling very disconnected from them because of the distance. This is a very confusing and jumbled post, so apologies, I have just been thinking about this for a long time.