Another old Mexican
Anna Lee Dozier said she noted the vase was “recognizably from Mexico” and “looked old” when she encountered it at the 2A Thrift Store in the Clinton, Maryland. “In my work, I travel a lot to Mexico, and this item caught my eye because it looked different than the things on the shelf.” “It looked old … but, like, I was thinking a 20- or 30-year-old tourist thing — something someone brought home, you know, from a trip somewhere.” Dozier, who works for human rights organization Christian Solidarity Worldwide, visited Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology on a work trip in January and said something just clicked. “As I was walking through, it just occurred to me that some of the things that I was looking at looked very similar to what I had at home,” she said. She asked a museum staff member what she should do if she thought she had a cultural artifact. The employee told her to contact the Mexican embassy when she returned to the U.S., Dozier told NPR.
The embassy collected photos and information about the vase from Dozier and sent them to the Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History for authentication. Experts there confirmed that the vase was an artifact from the Mayan Classic Period, made between 200 A.D. and 800 A.D. in the area now known as Southeastern Mexico. “In April, they contacted me to say that, yes, it was in fact something real and very, very old,” Dozier said. “[The email] just said: Congratulations, it is real. And we would like it back — in a very nice way. Which is what I had intended.” Dozier packed up the vase in a food-delivery box lined with newspapers and drove to the Mexican Cultural Institute in D.C. on Tuesday. “That little 30-minute drive, the whole way, I was just praying that [there would be] no fender benders, no accidents. Just get it there in one piece,” she said.
“I am thrilled to have played a part in it’s repatriation story. I would like it to go back to its rightful place and to where it belongs. But I also want it out of my home, because I have three little boys, and I have been petrified — well, it’s gone now, but I was petrified that after two thousand years I would be the one to wreck it!” Under Mexico’s 2021 initiative, Gamboa told the local outlet, approximately 13,500 objects of Mexican archaeological and historical importance have been repatriated from abroad in recent years. Details about exactly how the vase ended up at a thrift store in Maryland were not immediately clear. Nonetheless, Mexico’s cultural institute in Washington DC celebrated its recovery of the vase in a ceremony on Monday. “Giving it back feels so much better than it would if I put it [up for sale online] and I got a bunch of money.” She said: “It’s really important to recognize that some of these things, especially with such historical and cultural value to an entire country and people – you can’t really put a number on that.”
Historic humor
Guy Walks into an Antique Shop ….
and asks, “What’s new?”
Why can’t you play UNO with Mexicans?
They’ll steal all of the green cards.
Who runs Mexican Amazon?
Jeff Pesos.
My Mexican uncle takes anti-anxiety medication
It’s for Hispanic attacks.
June 25th Birthdays
1943 – Carly Simon, 1982 – Jamie Genevieve, 1975 – Linda Cardellini, 1980 – Busy Phllip
1964 – Dell Curry, 1903 – George Orwell, 1963 – George Michael, 1963 – Ricky Gervais