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Woman discovers her $3.99 thrift store vase, is actually a priceless 2,000-year-old Mayan artifact

The Maryland thrift store sold the ancient artifact for $3.99.

WASHINGTON — A homecoming 2,000 years in the making and it starts on the clearance rack of a local thrift store. A DC woman thought she scored a reproduced Mayan vase for a bargain. Turns out, her thrift store replica is the real thing and is heading back to the descendants of this ancient civilization.

Anna Lee Dozier loves a good find.  About five years ago, she discovered an interesting vase on the clearance rack of the 2A Thrift Store in Clinton.

“It looked old-ish, but I thought maybe 20, 30 years old and some kind of tourist reproduction thing so I brought it home,” explained Dozier.

Fast forward to this January. During a work trip to Mexico, Dozier visited the Museum of Anthropology and much to her surprise some artifacts in the museum looked a lot like her thrift store vase.

“So, I just asked what would be process if I had something that was old and I wanted to repatriate it, how would I go about that,” Dozier recalled, “and she (the museum staff member) hears that a lot. She was a bit skeptical but said you would go back to your country and contact the embassy.”

And she did. A month later, Dozier sent pictures and dimensions of her vase and found out it was not just an authentic Mexican artifact, the ceremonial urn belonged to the Indigenous Mayan people and dates back between 200 and 800 AD - making her $3.99 purchase, a priceless treasure that is nearly two-thousand years old.

“I am thrilled to have played a part in it's repatriation story. I would like it to go back to its rightful place and to where it belongs,” she said, “But I also want it out of my home because I have three little boys and I have been petrified, well it’s gone now, but I was petrified that after two-thousand years I would be the one to wreck it!”

Monday evening, those Dozier boys got to meet Mexican Ambassador Estaban Moctezuma Barragan when mom returned the vase in an official ceremony at the Cultural Institute of Mexico.

The vase joins other artifacts dropped off anonymously and are heading back to the homeland.

“Human rights extend to culture and history,” said Dozier in a prepared statement she read during the ceremony.

Dozier, who has worked as a human rights advocate with Indigenous communities in Mexico, said she is honored to have played a part in this precious lost and found.

“When you have strong roots, you know them and you honor them,” said Ambassador Moctezuma Barragan, “she recognized that a whole country, a whole culture cares about it, and we are deeply in gratitude with her.”

The folks at the Cultural Institute tell WUSA9 they ship artifacts back to Mexico monthly with 90 percent of the items deemed authentic. The artifacts collected Monday will be carefully packed and shipped to the Museum of Anthropology for its final analysis. Then they will find a new home in one of the country’s museums.

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