Also called “Treasure of the Quimbayas”, composed of 122 gold pieces, is a matter of special interest on which the Colombian government said it will work for its recovery through dialogue or even with legal resources.

To questions on the matter of the opposition Popular Party (PP), the Executive explained this Thursday in the Congress of Deputies that the works conserved in the Museum of America of Madrid, are part of the collections of the Spanish State since 1893.

That year the ‘Quimbaya Treasure’ was donated to Queen Maria Cristina by the then Colombian President Carlos Holguin Mallarino, in gratitude for the help of the Crown in a border dispute with Venezuela.

The 122 gold pieces were discovered in 1890 in the municipality of Filandia, located in the department of Quindío, in the center of the coffee-growing country.

They belong to the pre-Columbian Quimbaya culture, which inhabited central Colombia, where it was decimated during the Conquest until it disappeared in the 17th century.

“At present, there is an open international debate about the pieces and works of art from the colonial period that are outside their countries of origin, a debate that the Ministry of Culture will follow very closely”, the Spanish administration specified.

ef/abo/mem/ft