A rural Kansas town returns invaluable pre-Columbian artifact to Peru: 'The right thing to do'

The artifacts were thought to be made between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. and come from the Nazca region in Peru. They come from a collection that the Miami County Historical Society and Museum received five years ago from a Kansas City couple's trust.
PAOLA, KANSAS — A Peruvian artifact estimated to be more than a thousand years old, well-wrapped in white tissue paper and stuck into a borrowed school duffel bag, marks the first success of a rural town’s plans to repatriate its art collection.

The museum in Paola began its ongoing efforts of trying to return objects from a 38-piece collection of pre-Columbian artifacts a year ago, after first receiving the artifacts from a Kansas City couple’s trust five years ago. Pre-Columbian is a term used to describe an era of thriving indigenous art in the Americas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

“Although this is a wonderful collection, it really doesn’t have anything to do with Miami county,” said Miami County Historical Society and Museum executive board member Gordan Geldhof. “Really, the right thing to do was to repatriate them.”