A bronze sculpture seized at a Mexican airport last week, and hastily returned to Nigeria, is now claimed to be fake.

Last week the BBC reported on a supposedly ancient artifact believed to have been stolen from Nigeria's south-western Ife city that was seized by customs officers at the main airport in Mexico City. Speaking compassionately about the controversial object, Dr Diego Prieto, the head of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History , said the “beautiful bronze piece” was important to Nigerian heritage and should be returned to its home.

While Mexican officials didn’t reveal the smuggler’s identity, the foreign ministry said the artifact, which depicts a cross-legged sitting man wearing a head dress and holding an object, had been illegally exported and that the sculpture was of ancient “ Yoruba origin”. Aghast at the attempted theft of this allegedly African historical piece, Julián Ventura Valero, the deputy secretary of foreign affairs, said the commercialization of archaeological pieces undermines the integrity of cultures and that last week this particular artifact was handed over to Nigeria's ambassador to Mexico, Aminu Iyaw, in a special ceremony.


And whilst these sentiments and intentions are praiseworthy, according to arts specialists speaking up today, what the Nigerian ambassador was “ceremonially” handed, was no more than a cheap fake .

Experts have now claimed this to be a ‘cheap fake’. (Image: INAH)

This whole scenario began last week when artifact specialists at the National Institute of Anthropology and History identified the object as being 6th-century from the Yoruba kingdom in southwestern Nigeria. The Mexican government said the piece had been exported illegally, but today, in an article published in The Art Newspaper , Julien Volper, a curator at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren in Belgium says the object is “a fake of the worst quality,” and that many similar objects can be procured “on eBay.”

Furthermore, a Paris-based dealer told The Art Newspaper that the work is “an airport-quality rough copy” and that this story is a “ridiculous shame” for Mexico who hastily managed the repatriation to Nigeria, as governments race to give back African artifacts in what is described as a phase of “fashionable restitution,” with no care for legal and historical facts
https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/nigerian-artifact-0013365