The Council of Tenerife has assured that there is no justification for the Guanche mummy that is in the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid not be returned to the island, something that the Canary Islands have requested seven times, the last in 2021 and from which a response is expected.
Because the mummy is on display in the National Archaeological Museum since 2015 and before that it was in the house of councilman Francisco Javier Machado, as well as in the National Museum of Anthropology, in the Museum of Nature and Archeology (Muna) of Tenerife A module to house a replica was inaugurated this Wednesday.
Guanche mummy replica
The replica is reliable of the one in Madrid, has asserted the director of the Muna and the Canarian Institute of Bioarchaeology, Conrado Rodríguez-Maffiottewho has agreed with the Minister of Museums of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Concepción Rivero, in that the return of the Guanche mummy only depends on the good will of the administration that houses it.
A return that has been requested in 1976, 1990, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2017 and 2021, has indicated Concepcion Riverowho has said that although the reasons given for not returning it are conservation and transfer difficulties, it is believed that since it is a “very relevant” mummy they prefer that it remain in Madrid.
Conrado Rodríguez-Maffiotte has commented that if at the beginning of this century Guanche mummies were moved from Argentina to Tenerife, and in 2011 the same was done from the Complutense University of Madrid without any problems, “obviously” the reasons cannot be technical.
For him director of muna it is clear that the real reason to oppose the transfer is that it is the best preserved Guanche mummy specimen “that exists, and I think that of all those who have existed”.
Mummy from between 1154 and 1260
This mummy, which, according to a study by the National Archaeological Museum, dates from between 1154 and 1260, belongs to an adult man and was found in 1763 in the Erques ravine, between the municipalities of Güímar and Fasnia, and was taken to court of Charles III.
Concepción Rivero has stated that it is a very important mummy for the Canary Islandsand has indicated that although it is the best preserved of all there is, it is believed that the hair is not the original, and would have been placed around two centuries later, Conrado Rodríguez-Maffiiotte has pointed out.
The value of the mummy is above all archaeological, as a symbol of the best conservation technique used by the Guanches in mummification, and it also allows us to approach the physical characteristics of these people with the greatest possible detail and precision, the minister declared. of Museums of the Cabildo de Tenerife.
Concepción Rivero has highlighted that the mummy is well guarded and preserved in the National Archaeological Museumalthough he has opined that it occupies a space that is “something out of the way.”
In the documentation of the Museum of Nature and Archeology of Tenerife It is noted that the first restitution of Guanche mummies dates from 2003, which came from Argentina, where two mummies had been sold to citizens of that country, one of a man and the other of a woman.
The last three that have been returned arrived in Tenerife from the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid, in 2011.
