PAOLA — Cartons of Mexican artifacts, which could be priceless, worthless or somewhere in the middle, sit in storage at a rural museum in Kansas, waiting to be picked up.
The museum in Paola began its ongoing effort to return objects from a 38-piece collection of pre-Columbian artifacts more than a year ago, after receiving them from a Kansas City couple’s trust a few years earlier. Museum officials decided to repatriate the items and use the space to display more local history.
After making little headway on their own, museum board members worked with U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids’ staff for guidance on how best to contact the involved embassies. The move resulted in the return of three Peruvian artifacts in September. While two of the three artifacts were found to be replicas, the third was described as a potentially invaluable original.
On Thursday, Davids took a tour of the remaining collection.
“From today, one of the things I would say is continuing to work on making sure that people have a better understanding of how much history there is in this area,” Davids said, standing outside the museum. “It’s important, but it’s also cool and exciting. … It’s like this mystery we can keep unfolding.”
The artifacts, consisting of pottery and figurines, are thought to come from an era of indigenous art in the Americas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The original collection named Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru as the countries of origin.
Following the return of Peruvian items, Miami County Historical Museum executive board member Gordon Geldhof said the museum is now in talks about returning the Mexican artifacts, of which there are more than 30.
He said efforts to contact Guatemala and Ecuador haven’t garnered replies yet.
“I’m real, real happy we got the Peruvian artifacts back; it looks like we’re right on the cusp of getting all the Mexican things back,” Geldhof said. “The two countries, Guatemala and Ecuador, we haven’t had any response from them. And we’re very upset about that. If I knew somebody had an artifact from my family that’s 2,000 years old, I would be jumping over backwards to get it, and they don’t seem to be interested.”
Geldhof said the current plan is to return all authentic artifacts and auction off any fake or replica pieces to raise money for the museum, which is stuffed full of historical items waiting to be displayed.
Jana Harrington-Barcus, the museum’s executive director, pointed to the mammoth bones stored in one of the museum rooms as an example of intriguing local history.
“It’s been fun, because coming to the museum, we’re just constantly learning, learning, learning,” she said.
