MiCultura and Chancellery get 343 archaeological pieces repatriated from the Netherlands

A total of 343 archaeological pieces of ceramic material from the pre-Hispanic period were repatriated to Panama from the Netherlands (Netherlands) and received at the Tocumen International Airport by the Minister of Culture, Giselle González Villarrué and the Vice-President, Ana Luisa Castro.

According to the incumbent of Culture, "the recovery of this Panamanian cultural good shows with fact, the fulfilment of our responsibility and commitment to rescue our identity and our history as a source of social cohesion and collective pride."

He added that "Retirement archaeological goods, as well as those resting at different museums throughout the country, serve as an economic motor for cultural tourism and thus we have developed the importance of keeping them, restoring them and giving them the value that will allow them to be shown with their historic context."

"One of the most powerful reasons for performing the process after its arrival with the necessary technical skills, is just so as to avoid losing the valuable information that will allow us to reveal its provenance and with this contextualizing our history," she said.

Once in Panama, the Ministry of Culture (MiCultura) will have a mandate from law through the National Cultural Heritage Authority to be a permanent custodian of these cultural objects that will be part of the collection of the Reina Torres de Araúz Anthropological Museum.

Although these pieces will have been put into custody once they have been put to Panamanian ground, technical and historical studies will be required to give information about the archaeological sites to which these goods belong.

While his deputy Minister of the Exterior, Ana Luisa Castro explained that achieving the repatriation of these cultural goods was the result of an arduous work that began from March this year through Panama's ambassador to the Netherlands, Elizabeth Ward, in continuous communication with MiCultura with respect to the pieces that were found at Leiden University.

The diplomat expressed that that communication expressed the interest of the University of Leiden in returning this important collection to the Republic of Panama.

It should be noted that the first attempts to bring these pieces to Panama date back to 2018, but from different situations the repatriation cannot be achieved and have been during this administration of President Laurentino Cortizo and his government team that we have been able to complete the process in an effort between different addresses of the MiCultura and the Chancellery ministries.