Costa Rican airport authorities detained on Monday a U.S. citizen who was trying to fly with seven pre-Columbian pieces of about 1,200 years old hidden in his luggage.
The 56-year-old man was approached by the Airport Police of the Air Surveillance Service at Juan Santamaria International Airport, in San Jose, and they discovered the pieces when they checked his luggage.
“The National Museum was consulted, whose experts indicated that the vessels correspond to the Central Archaeological Region and a temporality from 300 to 800 A.D., a phase known as La Selva,” said a statement from the Ministry of Public Security.
The man, who the authorities only identified by his last name, Ficalora, was flying to the United States and was in the country as a tourist, was arrested for violation of the law of the Archaeological Heritage of Costa Rica.
This type of ceramics, or fragments of them, are vestiges found in Costa Rica, some up to 4,000 years old.
According to the National Museum, ceramics are the most abundant material in archaeological deposits.
