Austria ready to temporarily return Montezuma headdress to Mexico

Jan 16, 2011, 15:09 GMT

Vienna - Austria is in talks with Mexico to temporarily return a feather crown known as Montezuma's headdress, changing its decades-long policy of keeping the valuable piece in the country, a museum official confirmed Sunday in Vienna.

Mexican politicians as well as representatives of the native population have been pushing the Austrian government for years to send back the artefact dating from around 1520, the year when the last Aztec emperor Montezuma II died.

The crown-like piece is owned by the Museum of Ethnology in Vienna, a part of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

The director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Sabine Haag, said in a radio interview that diplomatic talks were ongoing but stressed that Austria would not permanently return the headdress, known as the Penacho de Moctezuma in Spanish.

'We understand of course that the Penacho has a deep symbolic and spiritual meaning for Mexico's native population, and we are therefore in the process of coming up with conservation measures in order to store and exhibit it as part of Austria's and Mexico's cultural heritage,' Haag told radio Oe1.

Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger would not oppose a transfer to Mexico, the daily Kronen Zeitung reported Sunday.

Art historians think that the headdress, which is around a metre high and made of green feathers from the resplendent quetzal bird was not worn by the Aztec emperor, but more likely by a priest.

The headdress was acquired in the 16th century by the art-loving Habsburg archduke Ferdinand II of Austria.

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