He The treasure of the Quimbayas has been realized between 500 and 1000 AD. c. This is a complete funeral trousseau found in two Quimbaya tombs near Filandia, in the Cauca River Valley, Colombia. It is composed of objects made of gold and tumbaga (an alloy of gold and copper) and constitutes the most important set of pre-Hispanic America, due to its quality, aesthetics and technique, which has survived to the present day.
Among the different pieces that make up the Quimbaya treasure, human-shaped containers are foundcalled chiefs; or the pumpkin, known as poporos and which is said to be used for the consumption of hallucinogens; as well as a wide variety of objects intended for decoration, including helmets, earmuffs, nose rings, brooches or bells.
It was found in November 1890 by some miners of AntioquiaThe newspapers of Manizales and Bogotá immediately reported the discovery. This treasure of the Quimbayas It is one of the emblematic complexes of the Museum of AmericaBut how did it come to belong to Spain?
On March 16, 1891, the Queen Regent Maria Cristina of Habsburg handed over to Madrid he Prize on the border issue between the Republic of Colombia and the United States of Venezuelain the development of the task that both countries had entrusted to him. Carlos Holguín Mallarino, President of Colombia, then expressed his deep gratitude and considered it necessary to reward this work with a gift worthy of the one who had chaired the Commission. The diplomatic gift in question was the treasure of the Quimbaya.
Eighty-two years after the gift, being Belisario Betancur, Colombian Ambassador to SpainThe first claim procedures were initiated to obtain the repatriation of the group, and since then attempts have been repeated, although they failed when the Museum of America and the Spanish State refused to consider any type of return, whether partial or total.
Why does the Spanish state refuse the return? To answer, we need to know the context that led to the donation.
On July 20, 1892, Colombian President Carlos Holguín, in his message to Congresssaid of this collection: “It is the most complete and richest gold object that will be found in Americasign of the degree of advancement reached by the primitive inhabitants of our country. I had it purchased with the intention of exhibiting it at the Madrid and Chicago Expositions and of donating it to the Spanish Government for a museum in its capital, as a token of our gratitude for the great work done in the study of our border question with Venezuela and the liberality with which it has incurred all the expenses required for such a study. “As a work of art and a relic of a dead civilization, this collection is of inestimable value.” The donation was confirmed in accordance with an act of the Colombian Council of Ministers signed in Bogota on August 20, 1891.
It was not a payment, but a gift from one country to another. According to Colombian politician Carlos Rodado, “it was not the payment of a debt for Spain’s expenses in the arbitral award that defined the land border with Venezuela, since Spain did not recover it. Decorum requires at the same time the presentation of a gift.
The case could be compared to Greece’s efforts in connection with the Parthenon Marbles, or Egypt with the bust of Nefertitibut this is obviously not the case. In both cases, these are violent dispossessions, the result of invasions of their territories in the past. The Quimbaya treasure is not an example of pillage during a military raid, but rather a courteous way of settling a debt to the Spanish government for its diplomatic services.
It is clear that President Holguín offered the collection to the Queen Regent of Spain by a State decision taken in the Council of Ministers, as a gift to settle, through her arbitral award, the definition of the territorial limits between Colombia and Venezuela, and that she accepted such a gift in her capacity as Head of State.
THE Alphonse XIII’s mother decided that he the treasure will go to the deposits from the Ethnographic Museum of Madrid and, finally, ended up at the Museum of America, where we can currently visit it.
