Alejandra Frausto Guerrero, head of the Secretariat of Culture of the Mexican Government, wrote simply “we oppose the sale of Mexico’s cultural heritage.”

In the following days, INAH and Frausto Guerrero’s office continued to condemn the auction in press statements, and filed complaints with the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office and Interpol, while the story circulated in Spanish-language news outlets. Frausto Guerrero also sent a letter to the platform demanding the auction be pulled down.

The auction nevertheless proceeded as scheduled, and all the pieces apparently sold, with AuctionNinja telling ARTnews it had no knowledge of the Mexican government’s claims. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration launched an ambitious campaign to reclaim lost or stolen Mexican cultural and historic goods shortly after he entered office in 2018, and Frausto Guerrero’s effort was just the latest strategy in that effort.

Dubbed #MiPatriomonioNoSeVende, or “My Heritage Is Not for Sale,” the campaign has used social media to call out sellers of Mexican artifacts, UNESCO for intervention, sued museums and collectors, and built coordination with law enforcement and government officials in the United States and across Europe. In 2021 AMLO, as López Obrador is more commonly known, created a new National Guard team, modeled on a similar unit in Italy, dedicated to that aim.

The campaign, in the government’s view, has been an unmitigated success. Since 2018, the country has repatriated more than 13,500 archaeological and historical objects from 15 different countries, including the US, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, INAH told ARTnews. That figure far exceeds the 500 objects repatriated during the administration of AMLO’s predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, according to a 2018 government report. Some of the most important recoveries, according to INAH, are 2,000 archaeological pieces voluntarily returned in 2022 by a family in Barcelona, which it says is the largest such repatriation in Mexican history. Another important recovery is 43 pre-Columbian archaeological objects that were recovered from Italy, repatriated last March. Perhaps the most prominent one is Chalcatzingo Monument 9, representing an “Earth Monster,” that was repatriated from the US this past May.

But, according to Mexican archaeologists and officials working at INAH who spoke with ARTnews, the splashy headlines and victorious repatriation ceremonies bely a far more complicated reality. The country’s heritage conservation sector, they said, has been suffering funding cuts, a labor shortage, late and unpaid salaries, and a lack of community involvement that many say could prevent the looting and theft of artifacts in the first place.

A Conservation Sector Beset with Budget Cuts

In 2022 Mexican archaeologist Daniel Salinas Córdova sought to push policy changes by publishing a paper in leading archaeology journal La Revista de Arqueología Americana urging his fellow experts in cultural heritage preservation and conservation to raise awareness and educate the public around the collecting and commercialization of Mexican archaeological antiquities. In the years before and since, he has watched as the government focused on public repatriation campaigns abroad, while ignoring issues at home.

“It’s great that the current administration is giving so much attention to these issues of recovering cultural heritage items from foreign collections and the art market,” Salinas Córdova told ARTnews recently. “But focusing so much on recovering archaeological or historical artifacts from abroad without thoroughly addressing the labor, economic and management issues in the heritage conservation sector [at INAH] is highly questionable and unsustainable in the long run.”

Víctor González Robles, doctoral candidate in anthropology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told ARTnews that the work the administration did to recover and repatriate the Baptismal Font from Caborca in Sonora and the Chalcatzingo Monument 9 is impressive, particularly the collaboration between the government, INAH, and the Mexico City Attorney General’s Office, which is in charge of investigating and prosecuting crimes. And yet, he added, these efforts have been coupled with debilitating cuts to funding.

In 2020 the government cut INAH’s budget by 75 percent, forcing the institution to halt fieldwork and keep museums closed until the following year. Archaeologists from the Society for American Archaeology were so concerned that they sent an open letter to AMLO criticizing INAH’s publicly reported budget situation. That July, INAH director Diego Prieto Hernández said during a podcast interview that, despite the budget cuts, he was committed to no layoffs or salary changes, and that the important activities of the institution, including conservation, research, and education would not be impacted.

However, according to Animal Politico, a Mexican online news magazine, the funding issue predates the pandemic, and has continued to the present. The outlet reported in December 2022 that the Ministry of Culture’s budget had decreased by 50 percent since 2017. The cuts were even more severe for INAH. A 2021 report by the Mexican government found that INAH had eliminated more than 950 positions over the previous two decades, even as the number of archaeological zones and museums open to the public had grown considerably. A 2019 edition of the report, Animal Politico said, found that INAH was suffering a budget shortfall of 601 million pesos, or approximately $35 million.

In July, around 150 workers of a national union of workers of INAH organized a protest outside Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology to advocate for budget increases to support museums and archaeological sites. While Animal Politico reported last fall that INAH is expected to receive a budget increase of 61 percent in 2024, INAH told ARTnews that, though there is a budget increase, it is not that high.

INAH’s budget issues are compounded by its oversight of Mexico’s expanding roster of 194 archaeological zones, 162 museums, and 515 historical monuments, as archaeologists discover new sites. The effect, according to Salinas Córdova, is that there are far too few experts caring for, studying, and cataloging recovered artifacts, and both museums and archaeological zones are severely understaffed and in urgent need of maintenance and basic supplies.

Knowing all this, Salinas Córdova asks, “How meaningful is it that thousands of archaeological pieces are being brought back from abroad?”

González Robles agreed that more funding is needed for INAH to fulfill its functions effectively. Beyond that, he said, the field is desperate for funding to increase research, conservation, and community involvement.

“More than diplomatic actions, I think it would require arduous work in the communities,” González Robles said, “because somehow the extraction of objects and illicit sales [are] related to a social context of poverty and marginalization, sometimes even to the presence of organized crime groups.”

González Robles has long advocated for more community involvement in Mexico’s archaeological sites, thousands of which currently operate outside the federal management model. Of the 53,000 sites in Mexico registered by INAH, only 194 are open to the public. As González Robles wrote in a 2021 paper, those sites not under INAH’s public management sit in a kind of “archaeological limbo,” where they are overseen by a constellation of private owners, municipalities, and local communities. Those third parties benefit from turning these sites into tourist attractions, while their legal status remains in question.

González Robles has called for reforms to resolve the status of these sites and to increase community involvement, whether in the form of increased surveillance at archaeological sites or training airport and postal service staff to identify and report stolen cultural goods, and establishing teams to patrol social media platforms and e-commerce sites.

Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, eBay, and others have become a “comprehensive black market” for antiquities. Enlisting communities to patrol these platforms and archaeological sites, González Robles has argued, could help prevent the loss of cultural goods there, rather than requiring the government to pursue flashy interventions.

Activism in the Realm of Presidential Politics

As much as AMLO has publicly championed the return of cultural heritage to countries of origin and strongly criticized illicit antiquities trafficking, there have been obvious contradictions.

Early last year, as the government was very publicly criticizing governments and illegal traffickers for removing cultural pieces from their original context, Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology hosted an international exhibition showing sculptural objects from Africa and Oceania, many of which came from European museum collections. As González Robles saw it, the exhibition exemplified a disconnect between the administration’s public pronouncements and actions.

“In general, this is a structural problem. And I believe that this administration has had the advantage of being able to confront it from the outside. But in the end, it is a vicious cycle that needs to be fully addressed,” González Robles said.

In addition, despite the government’s constant remonstration, it has never provided additional funds for the #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende campaign, according to INAH. Instead, the campaign has most often taken the form of training workshops for INAH workers and the National Guard by Italy’s Carabinieri, and public roundtable discussions covering such topics as how AI tools can aid database construction and tracking of trafficked cultural artifacts. In addition, AMLO has championed the campaign, provided updates, or openly condemned auctions of Mexican artifacts during his morning press conferences, sometimes joined by Frausto Guerrero, while his wife, First Lady Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, has used her social media accounts to call out museums and auction houses. And, while AMLO initiated the #MiPatriomonioNoSeVende crusade, it is worth mentioning that INAH was calling out offenders abroad long before he entered office.

Mexican archaeologist Omar Espinosa Severino, who has been vocal about archaeological looting and the rights of contract workers hired by INAH, told ARTnews that he believes the current administration uses the campaign to burnish its political reputation and to alter public perception of the professionals working in museums and the field of archaeology.

Having done a number of fieldwork stints at INAH, Espinosa Severino said “there is a disparity in the uses of heritage. It remains within the realms of political discourse.”

In 2016 Espinosa Severino and fellow archaeologists created Libreta Negra Mx, an online initiative focused on promoting Mexican history, culture, and archaeology.

“There are numerous hurdles to overcome,” Espinosa Severino said of repatriated archaeological and historical goods, adding that the country’s archaeological and conservation teams aren’t being given the budget to do the work. “In the end, will [it] all end up in a storage facility?”

INAH, for its part, told ARTnews that it is working between numerous different legal frameworks in countries with Mexican cultural goods to try to get them returned, which is a challenge. Still, it said, in a statement, “we must point out that some auctions have been stopped, pieces have been removed from sale, and in some cases, they have been seized and sent back to our country.”

“It is an obligation of the Mexican government to continue filing the corresponding complaints and to keep raising our voice to prevent the trade of these types of objects that are sacred to Mexicans,” INAH added.

With the presidential election scheduled for June and AMLO set to leave office in September, it remains to be seen if Mexico’s bifurcated approach to cultural patrimony will outlive the administration.

That morning, Mexico rejected the auction on social media, as part of #MiPatrimonioNoSeVende (MyHeritageIsNotForSale), an online campaign that is led by the Mexican government. The campaign seeks to raise awareness of archeological goods that belong to Mexico and that are abroad illegally.

The Secretariat of Culture of Mexico and Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) disapproved two auctions conducted by Howard S. Rose Gallery because the gallery was selling pre-Columbian goods belonging to the cultural patrimony of Mexico, according to the bureau and institute. On July 11, 2022, the Secretariat said experts of INAH had identified 1,384 goods belonging to Mexico that were being sold in the auction. And on September 26, 2022, INAH’s experts identified more pieces, 152 of which were being sold by the gallery.

On November 10, 2022, Islas López said that he was going to reach out to all of the corresponding authorities regarding this case and rejected the auction.

“Nobody has the right to take the cultural and historical patrimony of a society and a country. Cultural patrimony tells us stories of the origins, the beginnings of a society,” Islas López said in an interview with ARTnews, speaking in the New York officeof the Consulate General of Mexico. “A community should not steal the identity of another community.”

The Mexican Secretariat of Culture asked to take “ethics and respect for the cultural patrimony of Mexico” into account and said “it will continue to dissuade people from buying and selling looted goods,”according to a statement published by the bureau on July 11, 2022. But the auction house proceeded with the sale scheduled to end that day. The statement also said that the goods come from “the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico, different parts of the state of Guerrero, and from the west, the southeast and the Mexican Plateau” and are “defined and protected by Mexico’s Federal Law on Archeological, Artistic and Historic Monuments and Areas,” which prohibits the extraction and export of archeological goods.

Mexican law on archeological goods goes as far back as 1827, when tariffs for maritime customs and borders of Mexico started prohibiting the extraction and export of them.

Weeks went by, and while Mexican officials were doing what they could to recover the goods, INAH’s experts made another finding.

On September 26, 2022, INAH said that its experts identified more goods. This time there were 152 pieces which were being marketed online by the gallery. Some of them were Mayan and Olmec figures such as anOlmec stone serpent head and a Maya amber pendantand figure. The institute emphatically disapproved of the auction, which it said “includes many archaeological pieces that originated in Mexico,” according to a statement published that day. INAH said these pieces are not luxury items but proof of the identity and memory of Mexico’s earliest Indigenous communities.

The statement also said that INAH filed a report with the Attorney General of Mexico or FGR (a Spanish acronym for Fiscalía General de la República) and reached out to Interpol and the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs.

Islas López pointed out that INAH does not have records of export or exit permits of the archaeological goods from the two auctions in question.

“Presumably, those goods were looted or extracted from Mexico in an illegal manner,” Islas López said of all of the pieces identified so far. “It’s the job of the corresponding authorities to investigate and if it turns out that our presumption is true, that the report we filed is true, the authorities will execute their power and repatriate the goods.”

To identify the goods, INAH’s experts went through photos on the gallery’s website. Diego Prieto Hernández, the general director of INAH, said that the experts are able to determine with “a certain degree of accuracy” whether the pieces belong to the cultural patrimony of Mexico or not.

“If there are any doubts, we would have to resort to practices such as photogrammetry or collecting samples,” Prieto Hernández said. “But in general, the inspections our experts do and the professional opinion they have on the photos can be very reliable. Let’s say, 90 percent of reliability.”

The Owner Responds

“Just leave. You’re not welcome here,” Howard S. Rose said he told Islas López on the morning of July 11 in the gallery

Rose, the owner of Arte Primitivo-Howard S. Rose Gallery, said he asked Islas López to leave because “he was making unreasonable demands.”

To the claims made by Mexico, Rose responded saying that the country has taken a “hardline and rigid stance.”

“We tried to be sensitive to the political leanings and the feelings of everybody. But Mexico has taken a very hardline stance on this. In my opinion, it’s not only not realistic, it’s actually hurting their cause,” Rose said from his gallery located in Upper Manhattan. “First of all, if they had everything back that was ever excavated or taken out of Mexico, I can’t possibly imagine what they would ever do with it,” he said.

As it turns out, the archaeological goods of the two auctions in question do not have exit and export permits issued by INAH, as confirmed by Rose himself for this reporting. However, he added that he and his business have not broken any US laws.

“Any items that were shipped were done so legally under United States laws and requirements, with all export documents being correct and transparent. No INAH documents are required by US law,” Rose said. “We comply with US laws and have not broken any.”

As for when he acquired the archeological goods, Rose said that he “strives to offer items from old collections that have been in the US or Europe for many decades or generations.”

Rose was asked to return artifacts before, but the circumstances were different, he said. He once sold Egyptian pieces for a consignor, who, years later, was arrested by Homeland Security at JFK Airport. The consignor had obtained some goods illegally and the authorities were investigating him. They challenged everything the consignor had ever done, Rose said, including the provenance of the Egyptian pieces. Rose said the pieces were confiscated and he refunded money to his clients.

Rose shared that story to show that he complies with the US authorities, he said, and added he’s never acquired goods illegally. He is, however, displeased that US laws are not very clear on “the date that a provenance has to go back to.” To Rose, “strict guidelines that everybody [including antiquities dealers] can understand” are needed.

“This is the dilemma that we face. The laws are not clear from what they’re passing down to us. This industry has been trying for decades to get straight laws. But the laws are basically subject to convenient interpretation,” Rose argued.

According to Rose, Mexico will continue to have a flow of illegal artifacts unless its government starts compensating Mexican farmers, who find a lot of pieces in their lands and sell them in the black market instead of reporting them. Rose believes this is because authorities excavate and cause farmers to lose the use of their land.

When asked how he knows what Mexican farmers do and if he’s ever been to Mexico, Rose said he’s heard stories, read accounts, and dealt with people over the years.

INAH responded to Rose, saying they let anyone who finds an archeological good keep it if the person wants to become the custodian of it. The person just has to register it. Archeological pieces are “free from any form of commercialization” according to Mexican law, INAH said, so in that sense, they wouldn’t be able to pay for pieces that are found. And INAH stressed that it has “the infrastructure and the professionals needed to protect, preserve, investigate and exhibit the cultural goods that belong to Mexico.”

To his clients who already bought the goods from the two auctions and potential clients who might be thinking of buying from his gallery, Rose wants to assure them that all of the paperwork of the pieces from his gallery is legitimate. If there happens to be a mistake with any of the provenances, he’ll take responsibility.

“I would tell them, to the best of our ability, we have investigated every provenance. We stand behind every provenance. If there’s a problem with it, we would make it right to you,” Rose said. “If we were given a false provenance, you have to own that. You have to stand up to the responsibility. If I made a mistake, I’m going to be there for it.”

INAH Says 40 Pieces Are Fake

The authenticity of some of the goods has been called into question. Islas López said that out of the total of pieces that the experts reviewed, they determined that “40 of those pieces are fake.” Prieto Hernández, the director of INAH, corroborated that statement, saying that “the fake ones are easy to identify.”

Rose responded, “They’re just saying that because they’re not having any success reclaiming [them] as repatriation.”

Among the items that INAH said were fake are a Veracruz seated figure that was advertised as being of pre-Columbian origin. In fact, according to INAH, it was manufactured with modern tools.

“We can determine if a piece is of modern manufacturing, simply by looking at its morphology, which is usually atypical,” Prieto Hernández said, adding, “Sometimes our experts can tell right away when observing the morphology of stone sculptures that emery is present—it can even be seen in the photograph itself. And during Pre-Hispanic times, there was no emery.” To which Rose replied saying “you can’t tell from a photograph”, especially if the pieces “haven’t been put under a microscope.”

Prieto Hernández further explained that the people who manufacture these types of pieces are artisans and that he and his team are familiar with their work.

“They make beautiful things and want to make them look old,” he said. “We always talk to artisans and tell them that it’s best if they sell those things as handcrafts so they don’t get into trouble.”

While some of the pieces from Rose’s gallery have been tested in a laboratory to prove their authenticity, others have not. However, Rose said, “We’ve been doing this long enough. We know what real and fake look like.” Rose also said he does tests on pieces if something about them seems amiss, but that such examinations can often prove costly.

A History of Pre-Columbian Forgeries

Erin L. Thompson, one of the few professors of art crime in the US, said that forgeries of pre-Columbian artifacts are common in the market.

“Artisans have been making new artworks that look like pre-Columbian art since the mid-19th century, whether as reproductions, tourist souvenirs, or outright forgeries,” Thompson said. “The market for pre-Columbian art has been awash in fakes ever since there began to be a market at all, and forgers specialize in objects that customers want and are willing to pay a lot for.”

Looking over Howard S. Rose Gallery’s past sales, Thompson said she saw many categories of artifacts that are often faked such as Colima dogs and other artifacts of West Mexico. Some of the forgeries in the field of Pre-Columbian art, she said, include “well-preserved objects with only minor breakages, if any,” and “subjects that appeal to collectors’ tastes for the exotic, gruesome, erotic, and cute.”

“If you see a Moche pot shaped like an embracing couple, or an object associated with the ball game, or an adorable Colima dogs, and especially if they are in near-perfect condition,” she explained, “you should know that there is a chance it was illegally dug up from a grave or archeological site.

“But,” she emphasized, “there’s a far greater chance that it was made by one of the thousands of artisans working for nearly 200 years to fool buyers like you.”

The Investigation

ARTnews reviewed the two subpoenas that Rose received from the New York assistant DA regarding the two auctions. Rose was ordered to provide documents, photographs and correspondence related to the sale and consignment of the auctions on November 14, 2022, as stated in the subpoenas.

Rose said that he “sent them the consignment and provenance information as requested,” and that he is willing to cooperate with the authorities.

According to the subpoenas, Rose was only asked to respond to 81 archaeological pieces for the auction of July and 27 pieces for the auction of September. The quantity is less than what INAH and the Secretariat of Culture of Mexico said the gallery was selling.

The authorities are still investigating. When asked for the case, the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit said, “yes, we have an ongoing investigation into this matter.”

It would seem not all of the archaeological pieces of the two auctions were sold, as Rose said that “no auction ever sells 100 percent of the offering, except for a one in a million chance.”

Since 2022, the Consulate General of Mexico in NY, led by Islas López, has recovered and repatriated many artifacts such as old manuscripts, Olmec pieces, and a document signed by conquistador Hernán Cortés.