Officials in Peru and Canada have moved jointly to stop the virtual auction of 20 ancient pieces from Peru’s pre-Hispanic Chancay culture, the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday.
It said Peru’s embassy in Canada and the Consulate General in Toronto had taken the action together.
Waddington’s, a Toronto-based Canadian auction company, had obtained the pieces through an online portal called The Saleroom, the statement said.
Photo: AFP
The planned sale came to the attention of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.
Among the artifacts is a necklace made of seeds.
The pre-Incan Chancay culture developed in the valleys of Peru’s central coast between the years 1200 and 1470.
The government in Lima has been working to recover cultural assets taken from the country.
Both Peru and Canada are signatories of the 1970 UNESCO convention that promotes the fight against illicit traffic in cultural artifacts.
The Vatican in October last year agreed to return three mummies its ethnological collection received from Peru in 1925.
The US in 2017 returned 404 items to Peru, including 296 ceramics and 51 textiles, some dating as far back as the 8th century.
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