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 News from Around the Americas | November 2005 
Seized Artifacts Returned to Mexico
 Louie Gilot - El Paso Times
| | Guillermo Rivas, port director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection at Columbus, N.M., on Wednesday turned over a set of authentic artifacts that were seized in August from a vehicle at the port. The artifacts were given to Héctor Raœl Acosta, right, of the Mexican Consulate. (Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times) |
El Paso, TX - In August, Customs and Border Protection officers at the Columbus, N.M., port of entry searched a 1997 Chevrolet Suburban that was leaving Mexico. In it, they found two metates - flat stones used to grind corn into flour in Mexico. The stones were wrapped in blankets and hidden under other items.
Officers thought the stones could be historic artifacts and took them to Marc Thompson, the director of the El Paso Museum of Archaeology. Thompson dated them to 1200 to 1450.
Thompson said the officers have a good eye.
"I've offered to give them classes in the past, but they've been doing pretty well on their own," he said.
Wednesday, the metates and several grinding rocks called manos, were returned to the Mexican government in a ceremony at Customs headquarters on Viscount Boulevard.
"We see a lot of pottery coming through the Columbus port. We try to verify that they are not treasures of Mexico that belong to the people of Mexico," said Guillermo Rivas, port director in Columbus.
Héctor Raœl Acosta, a consul at the Mexican Consulate in El Paso, took custody of the artifacts, saying, "We appreciate very much what Customs and Border Protection has done."
The man who tried to smuggle the items into the United States was from the Midland-Odessa area and was not charged with a crime, officials said.
He told officials that he found the metates. Possession of stolen property is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but prosecutors would have to prove the suspect was aware he was committing a crime, officials said.
The artifacts will be sent to the Archaeological Institute of Mexico for testing and will be sent back to where they belong, which is probably the Paquimé pre-Columbian ruins in Nuevo Casas Grandes, a small Chihuahuan town 160 miles from El Paso.
Thompson said the metates were fairly common artifacts made of basalt, which occurs near Paquime. "They were mass-producing them," he said.
The Treaty of Cooperation between Mexico and the United States provides for the recovery and return of stolen archaeological, historic and cultural property.
Customs officials at Columbus said they seize possible artifacts two to four times a year and send them to the museum or to UTEP for expert opinions. Consul Acosta said the United States has returned artifacts to him three times in the past 10 years.
Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com |
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