The Vatican will repatriate to Peru very pre-Hispanic mummies that were donated in 1925 and that are preserved in the Ethnological Museum of the Holy See. Pope Francis received yesterday in a private audience the new Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Andean country, César Landa, who also signed the repatriation of these antiquities together with the president of the Government of Vatican City, Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga.
According to a statement from the Vatican Museums, these artistic pieces will be investigated to determine the period of origin of the mummies. It is understood that these remains were found three thousand meters high in the Peruvian Andes, along the course of the Ucayali River, a tributary of the Amazon.
The mummies were loaned for the Universal Exhibition of 1925 and later remained in the Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum, a section of the Vatican Museums in which kilometers of prehistoric restaurants from around the world are preserved and dating back more than two million years. years.
“Thanks to the good disposition of the Vatican and Pope Francis, it has been possible to carry out the return, as it corresponds. I came a subscriber that record. In the coming weeks they will arrive in Lima”, Landa commented in statements to the press.
«The feeling shared with Pope Francis that these mummies are more than objects are human beings is valued. Human remains that must be buried or valued with dignity in the place where they come from, that is, in Peru”, he added.
The Peruvian minister explained that for several years the situation was known and the Vatican's willingness to return them materialized in the Pontificate of Francis.
He also recalled that Peru has been recovering archaeological material from the United States and Chile, among other countries, and hopes that this line will continue.
Landa is on a tour of Europe to replace President Pedro Castillo, who has been denied permission by the Peruvian Congress to travel abroad. The minister stressed that the audience with the Pontiff "has been a magnanimous gesture on the part of the Pope to hope that the situation improves not only politically but also socially" in the country.
