The French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs announced yesterday that a high-level government official returned six pre-Columbian artifacts to Ambassador Carlos Bonilla Sandoval for repatriation to Costa Rica.

According to an official release by France Diplomatie, Jean-Paul Balzamo made the return of six ceramic and pottery objects, some made into human and animal shapes. The Agence France-Presse quoted a spokesman from the Foreign Affairs industry, who explained that the relics were confiscated at the French customs service of the Paris-Roissy Charles de Gaulle International Airport. Technicians investigated the relics’ provenance and determined that they belonged to Costa Rica.

Spokesman Bernard Valero stated that:

“The return of these archeological objects is one more example of France’s commitment and our ongoing cooperation in the international fight against the smuggling of objects of art and cultural heritage.”

In September of 2010, national newspaper La Nacion reported on the recovery of 28 pre-Columbian objects stolen in the 1990s and later confiscated by Italian law enforcement agents in Milan. Those objects were confiscated back in 1998, and they were kept at the embassy in Rome for 12 years due to budgetary constraints. Repatriating archeological objects is generally an expensive affair due to the logistics and insurance requirements involved. In the end, diplomatic corps member Miguel Angel Obregon brought the objects back in suitcases.

Looting of antiquities by real-life tomb raiders (nighthawkers in the United Kingdom) has always been a problem for researchers working in Costa Rica. The late Professor Michael J. Snarskis, an American archeologist considered to be the pioneer of modern archeology in our country, once criticized the collections at our Gold and Jade Museums as originating from grave robberies of cultural heritage sites by opportunists with connections to underground antiquities dealers who operate in the lucrative black market.