Shutterstock
You never know what you’ll find at a thrift shop. Sometimes, it’s just old clothes or books, but other times, you might stumble upon something extraordinary.
Anna Lee Dozier, from Washington, DC, was shopping at the 2A Thrift Store in Clinton, Maryland, about five years ago. She found a little vase that caught her eye.
It was only $3.99. Looked like a decent reproduction of a Mayan vase.
“It looked old-ish, but I thought maybe 20, 30 years old and some kind of tourist reproduction thing so I brought it home,” Dozier told WUSA News.
End of story? Not even close.
This past January, Dozier was on a work trip in Mexico. She decided to visit the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
As she wandered through the exhibits, something clicked. The items on display looked eerily similar to her thrift store vase.
“So, I just asked what would be the process if I had something that was old and I wanted to repatriate it, how would I go about that?” said Dozier. “She was a bit skeptical, but said you would go back to your country and contact the embassy.”
When she got back home, she did just that. Sent pictures and dimensions to the embassy.
The response? It wasn’t a reproduction at all. It was a ceremonial urn from the Indigenous Mayan people, dating back to between 200 and 800 AD – nearly two thousand years old.
“I am thrilled to have played a part in its repatriation story,” she said. “I would like it to go back to its rightful place and to where it belongs, 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!”
She and her boys even got to meet Mexican Ambassador Estaban Moctezuma Barragan at the Cultural Institute of Mexico when she returned the vase.
This isn’t the first time a thrift shop find turned out to be a treasure. Last year, Jessica Vincent bought a vase at a Goodwill in Richmond, Virginia, for $3.99.
Six months later, she sold the Carlo Scarpa vase at auction for $107,000.
