SAN AGUSTIN STATUES

About five years ago I was visiting St. Petersburg, Russia and while I was there, I came to this website:

https://englishrussia.com/2007/02/15/abandoned-mayan-statues-in-st-petersburg/

Abandoned Mayan Statues in… St. Petersburg

In one of the regular inner yards of multi-stored buildings in St. Petersburg there is a whole collection of Middle-American Mayan statues standing under open air and not protected by anybody, left all by themselves.

The story of them appearing there starts in 19th century when Academy of St. Petersburg sent a group of explorers to Middle America. They visited through all of Yucatan, collected different things for St. Petersburg’s museums. By the way they noticed and bought a set of Mayan idols from Chichen Itza ruins. Upon the return of expedition smaller objects were placed into museums but nobody has found a good place for those Mayan statues and they were left all by themselves in the back yard, dug into ground.

So hundred years passed and those 1500 year old Mayan deities stand, abandoned and not worshiped by anyone except accidental Russian teens searching for a place to have a beer outside in some public backyard."

In this link is told that statues are from Chichen Itza and it got my inererst because I have visited Chichen Itza, at Mexcio. It turns out that statues are not from Mexico, but they are San Agustin statues from Columbia. Statues are at Kunstkamera museum, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography http://www.kunstkamera.ru/en/ and inside the museum are ,more statues which are stolen and listed in  Latin American Red List ICOM site. I have reported to ICOM about the statues. One of them is here https://icom.museum/fr/object/statue-26-mesita-b-stone-1-8-m-x-73-cm-parque-arqueologico-de-san-agustin-colombia/

I have also reported about all of this to UNESCO and Columbian culture minister. At UNESCOs site is told that 

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/744  statues have outstanding Universal Value.  Even though the sites suffered long ago from looting, the early creation of the park in 1931 provided a stable adequate protection for the monuments and surrounding ceremonial Sentre.strong measures are taken to prevent the looting and trafficking of cultural property.

Internet is full of more info about statues like this site  http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/columbiasanagustin.htm

The largest group of religious monuments and megalithic sculptures in South America. Gods and mythical animals are skilfully represented in styles ranging from abstract to realist. These works of art display the creativity and imagination of a northern Andean culture that flourished from the 1st to the 8th century. The San Agustin archaeological park in Colombia includes a wide variety of stone sculptures, mostly carved between AD 100 and 1200. In the park are an amazing array of separate stone sculptures, in the shapes of animals and warriors and human faces, some mythical, some realistic. They are carved out of volcanic rock - some are over 4 meters tall and weigh several tons. 

I think Russia should give back those statues to Columbia where they belongs and where they are really worshipped and respected. Altough is good that statues are in museum in safe place and not in someones private collection. I am more than interested how these statues ended all the way from Columbia to Russia, but I am not blaming anyone about looting.

Pics about statues inside Kunstkamera museum here and also from museums outside statues:

Other countries has been returning statues to Colombia. There are many projects going on in museums around the world, where  objects are returned they oroginal countries. Google it if interested.

Colombia to ask Germany to return Pre-Columbian statues

https://colombiareports.com/colombia-ask-germany-return-pre-columbian-statues/

Colombia will seek the return of Pre-Columbian statues currently in the possession of Germany’s Ethnological Museum, local media reported Wednesday.

The statues currently in the Berlin museum were taken by German ethnologist Konrad Teodor Preuss (1869-1938) from the southern municipality of San Agustin, one of Colombia’s most important archaeological sites.

Locals from the Huila province have long called on the national government to request the return of the invaluable statues made by people from the San Agustin culture more than 1,000 years ago.

Whether Germany is willing to return the ancient artifacts is uncertain. In the five years the locals have called for the repatriation of the statues, the national government has never formally requested the return of the pieces.

Since then, the pieces have been part of the collection of the Ethnological Museum in the German capital, much to the frustration of the people of Huila, who believe the German scientists illegally took the artifacts from what is now a UNESCO-protected site.

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https://thecitypaperbogota.com/colombia/with-kogi-masks-colombia-wants-more-ancestral-treasures-to-return-home/

With Kogi masks, Colombia wants more ancestral treasures to return home

When Colombian President Gustavo Petro visited Berlin on June 16, his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, presided over a ceremony at the Bellevue Palace to mark the repatriation of two ancestral masks that belonged to the Kogi people.

Carved from wood in the mid-15th century and used in rituals by the ancestral people, the so-called Kágaba masks were taken out of Colombia by the German ethnologist Konrad Theodor Preuss (1869-1938) during the early 20th century to be safeguarded by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, an institution that oversees and manages a vast array of museums, libraries, archives, and research institutes. It was established in 1957 to preserve and promote Germany’s cultural heritage.

Given the importance of the Kogi’s sacred artifacts and their means of connecting with the natural world and spirits of the world’s highest coastal mountain range—the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta—the issue that the masks were preserved with chemicals to prevent wood decay from beetles and microbial infestations was not raised at the ceremony but was confirmed by Rudolf Parzinger, president of the Foundation. “The masks were indeed contaminated with chemicals (…) and we still have some doubts over whether they can be directly worn in front of the face,” he said.

“The Kogi community will decide what will happen to the masks. I would like a museum in Santa Marta, but that’s just an idea, and we have to wait for the Kogi’s idea,” stated Petro. Parzinger, who oversees the famous Museum Island in Berlin – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – as well as the Altes Museum, Neues Museum, Pergamon, and Alte Nationalgalerie, also agrees that the destiny of the masks belongs to the Sierra Nevada. “Whether they go into a museum, a temple, or are used in rituals, that is up to the Kogi.”

“The majority of the objects will stay in the collections of museums nationwide,” she told El Tiempo. Among the objects recovered this year from foreign governments—including Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the US, and France—are representations of the pre-Hispanic Tayrona, Quimbaya, Calima, Sinú, and Nariño cultures. The works are made from bone, stone, precious metals, or seashells.

Under Colombian law, it is illegal to export the country’s patrimonial treasures, and travelers caught with pre-Columbian items face heavy fines and the confiscation of the goods. With the return of the Kogi Kágaba masks, the Colombian Government now wants the German Government to hand over 35 stone statues belonging to the San Agustín culture, which Preuss took out of the country after World War I.

The statues, as tall as 3 feet and estimated to be 1,000 years old, are on display in the German capital, and others are in storage at Berlin’s Ethnological Museum. The San Agustín collection of “supernatural” statues is the largest outside Colombia, and the distinctive attraction of the San Agustín Archaeological Park in southern Colombia.