The visit to Colombia by the director of the Berlin Ethnological Museum, Christian Koch, opens the way to repatriate more than 100 pieces of Augustinian culture that were brought to Germany by the researcher Konrad Theodor Preuss 100 years ago. Koch, after a visit to the San Agustín Archaeological Park, signed a scientific and cultural cooperation agreement that will allow addressing issues such as the restitution of the pieces that Colombia seeks to rescue.
Hernan Galindo
As anticipated by LA NACIÓN at the end of last month, the German government made official its intention to return to Huila the more than 100 archaeological pieces that the ethnologist, Konrad Theodor Preuss, took – or stole – in 1915.
There are in total 133 pieces of Augustinian culture found in the warehouses of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin that the Colombian State intends to repatriate and for which various actions have been taken, including judicial ones.
Among the advances of recent years there is a ruling by the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca that, upon confirming this historic claim, in September 2017, approved a compliance pact that forced the State to undertake a diplomatic request to repatriate the sculptures of Saint Augustine.
Although the Colombian government has made multiple efforts to bring these treasures back to Huila, it has been that of Gustavo Petro that has achieved the greatest rapprochements, to the point of achieving not only a verbal commitment on “intensified cooperation” for the return of the statue but the visit of the director of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin to Colombia and more specifically to the area of origin of the figures that are in custody in the museum directed by Christian Koch.
The visit
The German ethnologist, Lars Christian Koch, director of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, visited the San Agustín Archaeological Park in the company of the Colombian ambassador to Germany, Yadir Salazar Mejía, last weekend.
The German director was also accompanied by a series of Colombian experts and officials made up of Vladimir Fernández, recently appointed magistrate of the Constitutional Court of Colombia and who had been serving as Legal Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic, a native of the department of Huila and a scholar. of the culture of San Agustín and its heritage.
Likewise, the delegation was made up of Catalina Ceballos, director of Cultural Affairs of the Colombian Foreign Ministry; Fernando Montejo, deputy director of Asset Management; and Juan Pablo Ospina, coordinator of Archeology of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, ICANH.
The approaches
Vladimir Fernández, recently appointed magistrate of the Constitutional Court and who had been serving as Legal Secretary of the Casa de Nariño, spoke with LA NACIÓN and told how this possibility arose of the return of the statues taken to Germany.
“In my capacity as Legal Secretary of the Presidency, I participated in the hearings regarding the popular action that seeks to bring the statuary that is in Berlin and in the middle of the year that we were with the President in Berlin, we spoke with the authorities, particularly with the President Steinmeier about a visit to Colombia related to the return of the statuary that Professor Preuss took a hundred years ago,” Fernández narrated.
As a result of the visit to Berlin, it was agreed that Professor Koch, director of the Berlin Ethnological Museum, would interact directly with them, so last week they were in Isnos as in San Agustín, reviewing the topic with the anthropologists and archaeologists of ICANH. staff of the Foreign Ministry and the Colombian ambassador to Germany, as members of the mission.
The former Legal Secretary of the Presidency explained that this progress will be presented to the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca and added to Professor Koch’s report to the German authorities that manage Colombian lithics in German territory and “according to this, extend the invitation to the President German to come to Colombia in 2024 and make the statues that are in Germany return to San Agustín.”
For its part, the Chancellery reported that within the framework of the visit a cooperation agreement was signed that includes guaranteeing the integration of the lithic collection of Saint Augustine that has been in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, for 108 years, in the parks. archaeological sites of San Agustín, Alto de los idols and Alto de las Piedras, archaeological complex guarded and administered by ICANH.
The agreement arose from a meeting with the director of ICANH, Alhena Caicedo, a doctor in social anthropology and ethnography and who accompanied this dialogue between peers with Professor Koch, during which they discussed restoration, conservation, research and education, actions that will be included in a document signed between the parties and which will be an innovative model for Colombia and Germany in the field of cultural and scientific cooperation, regarding the stone statues that are under the custody of the Berlin ethnographic museum.
On this topic, Vladimir Fernández maintained that the Faculty of Anthropology of the Universidad Surcolombiana was also included; “With this we seek to enhance it,” he said.
These advances will be presented, with the corresponding background and scientific rigor, to the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca that deals with the Compliance Pact process, in relation to the sculptures of Saint Augustine found in Germany.
An authorized voice
Gabriel Calderón Molina, former mayor of San Agustín and historian with extensive knowledge of Augustinian culture, referred to the repatriation of the archaeological pieces that are stored in a warehouse of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin as it was he who discovered that they were stored and not exhibited.
“On a visit to the Museum in Berlin in 2005, I discovered that the pieces were not exhibited and had instead been sent to a warehouse. Furthermore, the little that was exhibited at some point was not in accordance with the figures that were taken,” Calderón recalled.
Upon his return he informed the then governor Rodrigo Villalba who sent a letter of protest through the Foreign Ministry. “And they answered him agreeing, but since that museum was going to be reconsidered and relocated, his concerns would be taken into account, but he stayed with that,” added Calderón Molina.
Regarding the possibility that is being raised now, he said that it seems good to him, but that it is of no use if the spaces are not opened and the required importance is not given. “It is useless if they bring the figures and statues to keep them in a warehouse,” he said. And he added that, in addition to the exhibition space, it is needed to be in San Agustín and that this new museum be managed by the Municipality and not by ICANH.
How did the sculptures of Saint Augustine end up in Germany?
In 1913, the ethnologist and researcher Konrad Theodor Preuss arrived in San Agustín to carry out excavations. Already on the ground, in a short time, Preuss managed to obtain a significant collection of statues and other archaeological pieces that he wanted to send to his museum in Berlin the following year, but in July 1914 the seas were closed after the outbreak of the First World War. .
The ethnologist was trapped in Colombia until 1919. Finally, he shipped them to Berlin in four ships between 1919 and 1923. According to records from the time, Preuss passed these pre-Columbian pieces as minerals to circumvent Colombian legislation.
That heritage that Preuss took with him a century ago is what Colombia today seeks to repatriate and that seems to have found its way as a result of the interest of the current government and the response of its German counterpart.
