Dutch officials have agreed to repatriate hundreds of Indigenous artifacts to an archaeological museum in Panama. The announcement on August 29 claimed that the 343 pre-Hispanic ceramics held in storage at Leiden University were sent to the Museo Antropológico Reina Torres de Araúz in Panama City, where they will soon go on permanent display. In a government statement, Panamanian Foreign Minister Erika Mouynes described the collection as “the largest return of archaeological pieces in the history of Central America.”
The collection of pre-colonial pottery originates from the Gran Coclé region, which includes the contemporary province of Coclé and Azuero peninsula, and dates to circa the first millennium CE. Researchers believe the objects were excavated in the early 1900s, around the time Panama declared independence from Colombia. Many of the pieces are utilitarian, such as plates and bowls used in domestic settings; others were used as grave goods or burial vessels containing human remains. Some of the wares display hand-painted geometric decorations or show signs of clay modeling.