Pre-Columbian artifacts dating back 500 years finally returned to Mexico

Pre-Columbian artifacts dating back 500 years finally returned to Mexico

Last summer, inside the yawning halls of the Parthenon Museum in Nashville, Tennessee sat a collection of pre-Columbian artifacts and antiquities. The 250-piece collection — which includes ancient hand tools, obsidian arrowheads, instruments, and clay sculptures — is part of a temporary exhibit titled “Repatriation and Its Impact.” And at the end of the summer, every item was sent back to Mexico. “I want people to come in and know exactly that this is about not just our collection, but the world,” said Bonnie Seymour, an assistant curator at the museum, in an interview with NPR. “I want to introduce them to the idea of what repatriation is, and that it's not an abstract idea. That it is something that impacts people on a personal level.” From her very first day at The Parthenon, Seymour was shocked by the sheer number of collectibles on display that were “stolen.” “They represent someone's ancestors, and we're not them,” Seymour said. She soon turned to the Mexican Consulat…