{"id":1744,"date":"2018-11-10T03:15:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T03:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2018-11-10T03:15:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T03:15:47","slug":"us-returns-plundered-artifacts-to-colombia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/?p=1744","title":{"rendered":"US returns plundered artifacts to Colombia"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1745\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1745\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"512\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1745\" srcset=\"wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10.jpg 768w, wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10-300x200.jpg 300w, wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10-414x276.jpg 414w, wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10-470x313.jpg 470w, wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10-640x426.jpg 640w, wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10-130x86.jpg 130w, wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/10-187x124.jpg 187w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1745\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Colombian Ambassador to the US Francisco Santos points to a piece of an indigenous art collection that was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and returned to the Colombian people during a handover ceremony at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC, on October 10, 2018. (AFP\/Jim Watson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe United States returned to Colombia Wednesday 38 ancient artifacts plundered over decades by a private American collector described as a &#8220;modern-day Indiana Jones&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI recovered the artifacts &#8212; pre-Colombian ceramic pottery from the southern Narino highlands and the Caribbean &#8212; after receiving a complaint about the museum-like collection at the home in Indiana of one Donald Miller, a businessman with an interest in archeology.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators found thousands of pieces from China, Colombia, New Guinea and the United States.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This collector was a modern-day Indiana Jones. Remember that what Indiana Jones did was to steal all manners of cultural patrimony from other countries,&#8221; Colombia&#8217;s Ambassador in Washington Francisco Santos told reporters during a ceremony at the Colombian Embassy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what this man was &#8212; but he was a 90-year-old old man with a museum in his home. That was his hobby,&#8221; Santos added.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-nine of the recovered pieces were returned during the ceremony, and 11 more will be delivered in Bogota.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The items returned today are part of the largest collection of art and cultural property ever recovered by the FBI in the course of a single investigation,&#8221; said FBI Special Agent Maxwell Marker.<\/p>\n<p>No charges were brought against Miller, who died shortly after the collection was seized.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His hobby was to travel around the world picking up these pieces and literally stealing the cultural heritage,&#8221; Santos said. <\/p>\n<p>The Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History is set to assess the pieces and try to identify them.<\/p>\n<p>Trafficking in plundered artifacts is particularly destructive because of the loss of valuable knowledge that occurs as well as the physical objects.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We lose the ability to physically appreciate our heritage,&#8221; said Santos.<\/p>\n<p>Jennifer Galt, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, said the objects were so small that they were easy to hide in luggage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although we cannot return these items to their original context and recover that lost information, I am very pleased that the United States can return them to Colombia,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE<br \/>\nWashington, United States<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States returned to Colombia Wednesday 38 ancient artifacts plundered over decades by a private American collector described as a &#8220;modern-day Indiana Jones&#8221;. The FBI recovered the artifacts &#8212; pre-Colombian ceramic pottery from the southern Narino highlands and the Caribbean &#8212; after receiving a complaint about the museum-like collection at the home in Indiana [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1746,"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions\/1746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archaeology.sa\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}