The Canary Islands claims his Guanche mummy and rejects the Urtasun letter: “Our history does not hide”

The ‘letter of commitment for the ethical treatment of human remains’ has launched the process of withdrawal of these vestiges. The first: the mummy Guanche of the Barranco de Erques. It will no longer be exhibited and has been transferred to a warehouse of the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid.

“It’s time to go home.” This is determined by the director of the Museum of Nature and Archeology (MUNA), Conrado Rodríguez, who recalls that this is a ‘battle’ that already accumulates more than a dozen claims by the Cabildo of the Island. «This is the best place where it can be», He affirms to ABC, not only for complying with strict temperature control, humidity, anti -capital measures, special anti -theft crystals, parasitic protection system, but because it is» the appropriate context ».

He confesses that he “respects” any decision, but does not understand that “hide the Guanche mummy into a warehouse out of context is the best option.” So that it is so, that “it is exposed to the public on your island” integrated with the twenty complete mummies and partials that live in this center. “It is not that I should come, it must return,” he says, in a repatriation claimed since 1975. This adult male, 1.62 high and so well preserved that it almost seems asleep traveled as an eccentric gift in the 18th century to Carlos III.

The director of the MUNA confesses that the mummy will return, even more so when the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid does not contemplate it again. Maybe it takes time, because the return of this aboriginal canary could trigger a Wave of claims of several autonomous communities, since this letter of Urtasun affects no less than 14,845 remains.

The MUNA, which brings together between 300 and 400 Guanche remains, between mummies, skulls and bones, and retains in its warehouse skeletal elements of about 2,000 aborigines, also complies with all the precepts of the Ministry of Culture. «They are treated with the Maximum respect, They do not refer to a concrete person, they are contextualized, they do not imply an offense to an ethnic or religious group, and meet the research objective, ”says Rodríguez. They are key pieces to know the cultural life and all the adaptive phenomena of the population in the islands «, and in many cases the only track that is preserved of that aboriginal life that was lost in time.

His counterpart in Gran Canaria, the director of the Canarian Museum in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Diego López, has been equally resounding. «In this museum everything will be as it is, our history is not going to be hidden ». Although the letter does not affect him, he confesses that “we also do not agree.” That the remains of the exhibition to the public are withdrawn is something that does not share. “What is breathed is respect, devotion and admiration.” Diego López says it from the Verneau room of the Canarian Museum, which hosts the eternal gaze of more than 500 skulls and half dozen mummies. «We have been exhibiting remains of people 145 years in the best hygienic and security measures, with the Maximum respect and duly documented ». That will not change.

This exhibition, in addition to being the greatest attraction of the Canarian museum, retains an environment that catches as soon as possible. “They serve as a source of knowledge to the public, there is no morbidity or other intention than to bring a fundamental part of our history and our past.” The knowledge they contribute “is irreplaceable», Underline. “People who defend that ancestors are hidden are a minority number.”

Mummies and human remains “are one of the main roads To know the ancient culture, and thanks to them, conclusions about the diet are being obtained, how their social structure were organized, how they related to each other, how they treated the wounds, if they were violent … “for López,” we do not see difficulty to be exhibited, there are remains in churches and convents exposed to the public and people visit them “and that” is not a lack of respect “but generates feelings, and in the case of the museums of the Canary Islands, Wake up curiosity of large and small.

“Annihilating” the aboriginal culture twice

The Minister of Culture of the Cabildo de Tenerife, José Carlos Acha, is confident that the mummy Guanche returns to the island. Hide it into a warehouse «is kill Canarian culture», He points out, since after the conquest he was absorbed and” would die again “by not allowing” what we have left, spread and understand each other through museums. “

Erques’s mummy is said to be one of those who recovered from the ‘cave of the thousand mummies’, a great aboriginal pantheon wrapped in legends and mysteries in the south of the island, between Arico and Fasnia, and that currently No one has been able to find again. “He has been claiming for more than 50 years and we have asked for three times in recent years,” the last on January 13, this 2025. “We have the protocols made and we have the experience in the transfer of mummies in Madrid, but also from other places, such as Argentina.”

“We want it to return to its historical context as a fundamental piece of the museum”, because “they are fundamental to understand the past and should be exhibited as it should, because they are our ancestors”, and deserve “all the whole scientific rigor». The Muna “is a serious, rigorous place, without eccentricity and where visitors come out with a complete vision of what the aboriginal world is.”