KarunaNews Story

Anna Le Dozier found a ceramic vase at a local thrift store near her home in Washington D.C., and she bought it for $3.99 US dollars. "It looked old ... but ... I was thinking a 20- or 30-year-old tourist thing -- something someone brought home, you know, from a trip somewhere," Dozier told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. For five years, she had the vase on display in her home, until recently she was browsing the National Museum of Antrhopology on a trip to Mexico City in January 2024, and she realized her vase looked a lot like other items in the museum archives. She contacted the museum and followed instructions to reach out to the Mexican embassy. In April 2024, the embassy confirmed that the vase was identified as a painted vase of Mayan origin, dating to the Mayan Classic period, between 200-800 AD. Without a second thought, Dozier immediately intended to return the historic vase to Mexico. "It has value beyond what you could put money on. And so for me, it just was never a question. If it was something special, it should go back to where it belongs," she said. On Tuesday, June 18, 2024, Dozier returned the vase in a ceremony with the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. at the Mexican Cultural Institute in D.C. Through coordinated and internationally collaborative efforts, 13,500 historic objects of Mexican archaeological and historic heritage have been returned from abroad in recent years, aligned with 2021 Mexican legislation intended to "combat the sale of Mexican archaeological materials and facilitate dialogue with museums and private institutions for the restitution of our heritage".