He earth monster, the most sought after Olmec jewel, has returned to Mexico after spending at least 50 years on the US border. The archaeological piece will be exhibited from this Thursday at the Regional Museum of the Peoples of Morelos (Palacio de Cortés) on a temporary basis. Later, and although they have not marked the dates on the calendar, it will be returned to the archaeological zone of Chalcatzingo (Morelos), “from where it should never have left”, as the director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History pointed out this Thursday ( INAH), Diego Prieto.
“The historical importance of this archaeological piece, more than 2,500 years old, is compared to that of the iconic colossal heads of the Olmec culture. This is also an Olmec piece, but very distant from the original area of the Olmec culture”, Prieto explained during the president’s morning conference. The Olmec culture had its center of roots between the southern zone of Veracruz and the State of Tabasco, hundreds of kilometers from the place where the earth monster.
The monumental piece —more than one ton and around 1.80 meters high— arrived at the Cuernavaca International Airport in the hands of a Hercules, one of the Mexican Air Force planes, on May 19. The US Antiquities Trafficking Unit in Manhattan found the piece at the end of March, although it was in Denver (Colorado).
The authorities have tried to clarify since when he was at the US border the underworld portal —another of the names he receives. So far they have not been able to date the exact day or year. “It is unknown when he left the country. But, thanks to a publication by archaeologist David Grove in 1968, it is intuited that he had been in the United States since the mid-20th century. We work with the elderly of Chalcatzingo. Some saw the piece and how they tricked them into taking the monolith”, Prieto assured.
The iconic piece was stolen from the Chalcatzingo archaeological zone, characterized by the large number of stone reliefs that offer great information about the Olmec worldview. Chalcatzingo Monument 9, its original name, represents a fantastic creature, whose jaws show access to the Underworld. The archaeologist Mario Córdova Tello commented at the time of the discovery that its elements “pretend to be branches of bromeliads [un tipo de planta]”, “an identity trait of the original inhabitants of the city”.
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