Exhibition in Bogotá shows off more than 1,000 repatriated pre-Columbian artefacts

Bogotá’s Museo Nacional de Colombia is exhibiting 1,194 pre-Columbian artefacts repatriated to Colombia between 2022 and 2026 during President Gustavo Petro’s outgoing administration, in a show titled Pasados en retorno. Repatriación del patrimonio arqueológico, on view until 23 August. The objects were recovered from 13 countries, with 80% returned voluntarily and the remainder retrieved from auctions or cases linked to illicit trafficking networks through legal action. The largest numbers came from the US (384 objects), Italy (208), Chile (174), Germany (149), and Canada (127), with additional returns from the UK, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Peru, Costa Rica, Venezuela, and New Zealand. Curator Natalia Angarita highlighted a voluntary return from the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia as the only museum-to-museum repatriation in the exhibition, alongside individual returns by heirs including Jessica Lawrence (US) and Michelle Guigoz (Switzerland).

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