This is an unprecedented collaboration project between museums headed towards a better understanding of the headdress, which efforts have been intensified during the administration of President Felipe Calderon. Photo: Courtesy Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

MEXICO CITY.- Negotiations conducted for 3 years by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) before the Austrian Government, are about to reach a historical agreement that would bring Moctezuma´s Headdress to Mexican territory.

Friendly relations sustained between the Mexican and Austrian Governments would achieve a good-will exchange that would crystallize the dream of millions of Mexicans of admiring the feather headdress attributed to the last Mexica tlatoani (ruler).

This is an unprecedented collaboration project between museums headed towards a better understanding of the headdress, which efforts have been intensified during the administration of President Felipe Calderon.

In February 2010 was constituted a bi-national commission in charge of conducting scientific analysis of the piece to determine its physical state and identify the necessary restoration processes that would allow its eventual transport and exhibition in our country. When the project ends, a unique publication will be produced to show the artistic, cultural and historical value of the feather headgear.

Mexico and Austria acknowledge the Prehispanic piece as common cultural heritage, and, it that spirit, assume the responsibility.

SRE and INAH conduct conversations with authorities of the Austrian Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Culture and Education, the Museum of Ethnology and the Museum of Arts History (Kunsthistorisches Museum) in Vienna, to which the Ethnology Museum belongs, to examine the legal and technical terms in which the headdress can be transported to Mexico on loan. In reciprocity, Mexican authorities will study the possibility of a piece with significance for Austria, safeguarded in a Mexican museum, being sent to that country, also on loan.

SRE and INAH will keep the public informed regarding the development of this important project that has the objective of achieving that Mexicans can admire the Moctezuma’s Headdress, piece of great importance due to its symbolic and historical value, attending a long-time concern thanks to cooperation between both countries.