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Santo Domingo.- The French authorities confiscated a piece of the Taino culture valued as high as one million euros, seized last year together with other archaeological items sent to Paris to be sold by an antiques dealer as modern handicraft.
The Taino artifacts are the highest valued confiscation of items from Dominican Republic, pertaining to the pre-Columbian Caribbean people in recent history.
The piece was dispatched from Dominican Republic on April 3 last year by the exporter Hicotea Club S.A., of Las Galeras, Samaná (northeast), to Simurg Antiquités, in Paris, France, and seized by French Customs in one of four boxes containing 200 objects weighing 50 kilos.
The information is contained in document of the Dominican Foreign Relations Ministry, which explains the procedures followed by the French authorities, from the piece\s confiscation, the evaluation of its authenticity and the report to the Dominican representation before the organization UNESCO, based in Paris.
The report doesn’t specify what object is appraised, but does note that among them are four trigonolites (stone of triangular form with three faces), which can cost as much as 80,000 Euros, a cemí (carved idol, generally stone) as high as 250,000 euros, axes and several Taino sculptures, and a dúho of wood (a ceremonial seat), as high as half a million euros, everything following its state of conservation, among other items.
SOURCE: listin.com.do
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Free trade with globalization....???
Get it!!!!!
It's FORSALE.....sic
I personally have always beleived that indiviuals are better preservers of artifacts than governments, especially those governemnts that have no credibility for providing electricity, water, education and health care.
I agree 100%. The country is full of ancient Indian settlements, and nobody pays attention. Until now, where it appears money can be made out of that..
The Dominican Republic's Constitution states that "the entire artistic and historical wealth of the country, whoever the owner, will be part of the cultural heritage of the nation and will be under the guardianship of the State".
It will be interesting to know who sent the Taino artifacts and the overall condition for them.
For many years, and until recently, the kids in the beaches used to dig up and sell the small Taino sculptures, breaking them up in the digging process.
If these are large and fairly intact pieces, they could have been stolen from a museum, or also could be the property of a private collector that just wanted to turn them into cash. But maybe even the exporters had no idea of the real value, since they wanted to sell them for 4,500 euros, the article also mentioned.
More forensic investigations should be done to establish provenance.
Don't we have an antiquity team that try to protect and studies this important Tainos treasure.