A lady bought an almost 2,000-year-old Mayan vase at a Maryland thrift retailer — however did not notice what she had till she noticed an identical one in a museum
Esteban Moctezuma Barragan/x
Mayan artifact bought for $4.99 at Maryland thrift retailer returned to Mexico
A lady from Washington, D.C.,was in for fairly the shock after she bought a vase from a thrift store for $3.99, which turned out to be a Mayan artifact.
Mother of three and cultural employee Anna Lee Dozier was exploring 2A Thrift Retailer in Clinton, Maryland. about 5 years in the past, when she got here throughout what she thought was a “vacationer copy” of a Mayan vase, she told local CBS affiliate WUSA,
“It did look outdated to me, however not old-old, like 20 to 30 years outdated, possibly,” she instructed NPR station KVCR.
“I may see that it had some sort of hyperlink to Mexico, when it comes to what it regarded like,” she added. “And since it is a nation that I work on and it is actually essential to me, I assumed it will be only a good little factor to take house and placed on the shelf and to remind me of Mexico.”
Then in January 2024, Dozier traveled to Mexico for enterprise.
Throughout her journey, she paid a go to to Mexico Metropolis’s Nationwide Museum of Anthropology — and did a double-take when she noticed some very related vases to the one she bought for lower than $5. The vases she noticed had been so strikingly related, that she approached a museum employee and requested what she ought to do if she discovered an artifact from the identical historic interval.
“Among the issues I used to be regarded awfully like what I had at house on my shelf,” she instructed KVCR. “I nonetheless was doubtful that it was actual, however simply thought it regarded sufficient like that that I requested to talk to somebody within the [museum] places of work.”
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Esteban Moctezuma Barragan/x
Different artifacts on the Mexican Embassy.
After arriving house from her journey, Dozier contacted the Mexican Embassy and despatched them images and measurements, and anthropologists working with the embassy decided that the vase was a ceremonial urn belonging to the Indigenous Mayan individuals — and it was almost 2,000 years outdated.
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As she ready to assist the embassy transport the priceless artifact again to its house nation, Dozier instructed KUSA she solely had one fear — retaining it in the home together with her three rambunctious sons.
“I used to be petrified that after two-thousand years I might be the one to wreck it!” she stated.
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Esteban Moctezuma Barragan/x
Anne Lee Dozier and ambassador Esteban Moctezuma Barragan on the Mexican Embassy.
However after packing the vase right into a cardboard field with crumpled-up newspaper as a cushion, she fastidiously drove it to the embassy in D.C., the place Mexico’s Ambassador to the U.S. was ready to ship it house.
“A worthwhile witness to our Mayan historical past returns house 🇲🇽 #México,” the ambassador wrote in Spanish in a post on X, saying that the vase can be returned to the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico Metropolis.
“Because of the generosity of Anne Lee Dozier, a US citizen, we recovered a classical vessel, dated between 200 and 800 AD,” added Esteban Moctezuma Barragán. “This historic gem will likely be reintegrated into the [Institute] assortment to protect our wealthy cultural heritage.”
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In response to Dozier, returning the vase to its house in Mexico was far more worthwhile than any monetary acquire.
“Giving it again feels so significantly better than it will if I put it on eBay and I received a bunch of cash,” she instructed KVCR. “It is actually essential to acknowledge that a few of these issues, particularly with such historic and cultural worth to a whole nation and other people — you possibly can’t actually put a quantity on that.”
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