My-Mu Blog

In parts 1 and 2, it was established that the artifacts in William Niven’s Mexico City storefront have never been found and that there still is interest in finding them, including a Mexican government official, Guadalupe Rivera Marin.
In part 3, letters to the Mexican Embassy to the United States in Washington DC were discussed as well as letters to the successor organization to Senor Marin’s office.

The reply did take a while to arrive. First by email with a scanned copy of he two page letter and a few days later saw the arrival of express package with hard copies.

Now, my Spanish language skills are non-existent and require the use of translator. Since the return letter was in Spanish, I turned to an online tool to perform the task. After the excellent communications with the Mexican Embassy in Washington, I thought for sure that my short and to the point letter (not to mention that the first letters were in English,) that it would be an easy answer.

Rule One must be “It Can’t Be Easy” because in the reply, there was no mention of the enclosed original letters from 1974-5. What I got out of the online translation was that they knew I was writing a book and thought I wanted to copy materials for the book about Niven’s discoveries. They provided a list of reference material and a link. The letter also mentioned that they did not transfer any rights to the material, that belonged to the Mexican state.

OK – nothing about the correspondence that I had written about and enclosed.

On the good side, there were a few references that perhaps I could use for my upcoming book, Lifting the Veil on Copies of Stone Tablets Found by William Niven.

Of the references, it appeared that all referred to the same article/monograph, A Great Archaeological Discovery: The Ancient Tecpanecs in the Valley of Mexico by Ramon Mena. Senor Mena was the chief archaeologist of the National Museum in Mexico City while William Niven conducted his digs. Unfortunately, that particular paper had been criticized as some of the figures inside were found to be hoaxes (see Buried Cities, Forgotten Gods; William Niven’s Life of Discovery and Revolution in Mexico and the American Southwest; Wicks and Harrison; Texas Tech University Press; 1999; pages 205-209.)

The remainder of the references were Spanish language and were I to find them and try to translate, I would still be typing for the next few months.
Unfortunately, the provided link didn’t work either.

So, armed with all this new knowledge, I will embark on a path to uncover the secrets behind the old correspondence, details to follow…

In parts 1 & 2, we established that the whereabouts of William Niven’s collection of Valley of Mexico artifacts is a mystery and that someone in the Mexican government was very urgently interested in learning where those relics were located in 1975.

Obviously, I could not just sit on these letters. Why would a Mexican government official be so concerned half a century and more about where the artifacts were located?
Did he actually read the books on Mu and wanted to know more or was this part of an legitimate effort to recover ‘stolen’ cultural relics?

Casting aside any hint of disparaging the name or activities of William Niven, it is obvious that Niven’s widely publicized discoveries in the Valley of Mexico had the support of the Mexican government at the time. Niven’s Mexico City storefront selling the relics he recovered and his donations of countless artifacts to the National Museum attest to the fact that he had at least tacit approval of his archaeological efforts.

A quick internet search indicated that this particular agency that sent the letter in 1975 no longer existed. The obvious choice was to contact the Mexican Embassy in Washington DC and ask. The extremely helpful gentleman from the Embassy of Mexico to the United States provided the address of a successor organization in a return letter.

I sent a letter (in English) to the address of the successor organization. I wanted to be straight to the point – no use in cluttering up a piece of paper with unnecessary words or wasting these folks’ time. I had enclosed a copy of the official letter with tracking number. I told them I was writing a book, explained about the original letter and asked

“I am writing to find out if any further information has been discovered concerning the tablets found by William Niven.”

I believed that I was straight and to the point, however…

In Part 4 we’ll discuss the response.