[Aztlan] Costa Rican Archaeology to be Lost?

[brucewrite at aol.com]

One the other hand, some archaeological artifacts may be returned to Costa Rica after they were seized by authorities in Spain.  According to amcostarica.com:
 



The Costa Rican government is seeking repatriation of 457 priceless pre-Columbian artifacts taken from Costa Rica and now held in Spain.  The artifacts, from Costa Rican Leonardo Patterson's collection, were seized in Santiago de Compostela.

The Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, which filed complaints about the artifacts in 2007, is working with national and international authorities to recover the objects, said museum director Francisco Corrales.   

The museum received a CD Aug. 30 from local agents of the International Police Agency. The disk held images of archaeological pieces confiscated by the Spanish police. The artifacts were later determined to be of Costa Rican heritage, the museum said.

Marlin Calvo, head of the department for protection of cultural heritage at the museum, said that the museum has documents citing the date the artifacts left Costa Rica and the date they entered Spain.  

In Costa Rica, the laws declare that archaeological objects are part of the national archaeological heritage.  Costa Rican legislation was established stating that all archaeological objects from the pre-Columbian era obtained after Oct. 6, 1938, are properties of and can be reclaimed by Costa Rica.  


Authority is given to the national museum to conduct any legal, diplomatic or administrative means for the protection of these artifacts.  

“We hope they respond to us through the Costa Rican ambassador in Spain to know the present state of the legal situation of the pieces," Ms. Calvo said.  "We hope this takes shape as rapidly as possible so that the pieces return to Costa Rica.”

Patterson's collection may be valued at as much as $100 million, according to Spanish press reports. The public became aware of it when some key pieces were put on display in Santiago. Costa Rican artifacts make up just a small part of the total. There also are Mexican, other Central American and south American artifacts.

Patterson, who is from Limón, once held a diplomatic post in the Costa Rican government and served for a time in New York at the United Nations. He probably would not be facing any criminal action in Costa Rica because the museum said that a prosecutor has asked a judge to archive the investigation because the archaeological pieces are presumed to have left Costa Rica more than 10 years ago. That would mean that no court action is possible due to a statute of limitations.

The government of Perú also has expressed an interest in the collection being held in Spain.





-----Original Message-----
From: Hoopes, John W <hoopes at ku.edu>
To: Edward Allen <ekbalam at ix.netcom.com>; Aztlan at lists.famsi.org
Sent: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 6:47 pm
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Costa Rican Archaeology to be Lost?








As with the proposed dams on the Usumacinta River, damming of the Térraba-Coto 
Brús River in southeastern Costa Rica has been an on-again-off-again project 
since the mid-1970s.  In fact, it was the Proyecto Boruca (as it was initially 
called) that provided the incentive for a valley wide site survey undertaken by 
Robert Drolet and several Costa Rican archaeologists under the auspices of the 
National Museum of Costa Rica beginning in 1980.  Drolet's work provided a 
context for subsequent research by Francisco Corrales, Ifigenia Quintanilla, 
Jeffrey Quilter, Adrian Badilla, myself, and others.
 
Yes, any flooding of the Térraba-Coto Brús will result in the destruction of 
countless archaeological sites.  There is also deep concern that the Proyecto 
Hidroeléctrico Diquís will have a deleterious impact on indigenous communities 
in the region:
 
http://www.comitespatrioticos.com/index.php/sociedad/65-sociedad/620-organizaciones-indigenas-de-terraba-rechazan-proyecto-hidroelectrico-diquis 
<http://www.interconnection.org/ietsay/borucaproject_en.html> 
 
However, hydroelectric dams are also a relatively "green" source of energy that 
do not contribute the atmosphere's carbon load.  Costa Rica recently became the 
first country to pledge to be "carbon neutral" in the near future:
 
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07289157.htm
 
It's a complex issue, but one in which there needs to be a great deal of 
sensitivity to the concerns of both indigenous and archaeological communities.
 
John Hoopes

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