The Rise of the Private Market for Pre-Columbian Artifacts

A Jade belt pendant sold for more than a million and a half dollars in 2004, a world auction record for a pre-Columbian work of art. In 2021, a Mayan Hatcher or axe was sold for nearly $800,000 more than tripling its estimates. The debates really shifted from this need to justify on any level the moral imperatives for the restitution of looted antiquities," says Professor von Zinnenberg-Carol.