Always keep an eye out at Goodwill!
Anna Lee Dozier has an affinity for Mexican artifacts after working as a human rights advocate with indigenous communities, so when she saw what she assumed to be a reproduction Mayan vase on the clearance rack at a D.C. area thrift store for just $3.99, she quickly snatched it up.
It looked old-ish, but I thought maybe 20, 30 years old and some kind of tourist reproduction thing so I brought it home.
And there it sat for the next 5 years until Dozier went to the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City on a work trip and noticed that several of the artifacts looked incredibly similar to the vase she had at home.
While there, she asked the museum staff what she would need to do if her thrift store find turned out to be a true artifact. The staff told her to contact the embassy, which she did after returning home.
It was then determined that the vase was in fact a Mayan ceremonial urn dating between 200 and 800 AD!
Not bad for $3.99.
The vase is now being shipped back to Mexico, where it will undergo further analysis before being placed in a museum.
Dozier went on to say,
I am thrilled to have played a part in it's repatriation story. I would like it to go back to its rightful place and to where it belongs. But I also want it out of my home because I have three little boys and I have been petrified - well it's gone now - but I was petrified that after two-thousand years I would be the one to wreck it!
Spoken like a true boy mom!
At a ceremony at the Cultural Institute of Mexico in Washington D.C., Mexican Ambassador Estaban Moctezuma Barragan was appreciative of Dozier returning the vase to its original home.
When you have strong roots, you know them and you honor them. She recognized that a whole country, a whole culture cares about it, and we are deeply in gratitude with her.
It doesn't appear that she received any financial compensation, but at least she has a cool story to tell (and she's only out $3.99).
Check out the local news story here:
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