“Mexico’s most sought Olmec piece has been recovered and is about to return home, from where it never should have been taken,” says Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.
(Twitter/@m_ebrard)
Mexico has recovered from the United States a large stone statue often called an “Earth Monster” that dates to the Olmec civilisation earlier than the Christian period, authorities stated.
The elaborately carved statue weighs greater than a tonne and is sort of 1.8 metres tall and 1.5 metres broad, the National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) stated in a launch.
“Our Consul Jorge Islas in New York confirms to me that Mexico’s most sought Olmec piece has been recovered and is about to return home, from where it never should have been taken,” Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard tweeted.
The Olmec civilisation predated these of the Maya and Aztec cultures, and its artisans had been identified for creating colossal stone heads, statues and upright slabs.
The institute stated it believes the statue was created someday between 800-400 BC.
Known as Monument 9 of Chalcatzingo and located within the central Mexican state of Morelos, the bas-relief piece is believed to characterize an “Earth monster,” a creature that usually seems in Olmec iconography, INAH stated.
The open jaws of the piece symbolise the entry to the underworld and “on its mouth is projected a sequence of three concentric bands, representing the cruciform access to a cavern,” it added.
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Although it isn’t identified how and when it was illegally taken from Chalcatzingo, “it is documented that it was made public in 1968, by the archaeologist David Grove in the magazine American Antiquity. From there it is thought that at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century it was already in the United States,” the assertion stated.
New York authorities recovered the monument, however the press launch didn’t specify the place it was discovered.
As a part of the Mexican authorities’s effort to rescue historic heritage taken from the nation, nearly 10,000 items have been recovered since 2018, authorities stated.
In March this yr, Mexico acquired 43 objects from Italian authorities whereas in December the Netherlands returned 223 pre-Hispanic artefacts to Mexico.
READ MORE: Netherlands arms again over 200 pre-Hispanic artefacts to Mexico
Source: TRTWorld and companies
Source: www.trtworld.com
