Small Nashville museum wants you to know why it is returning artifacts to Mexico

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When Bonnie Seymour took a job as assistant curator of Nashville's Parthenon museum, one of the first things she did was to look through the collections. Among paintings by American artists and memorabilia from Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exposition — the event for which the Parthenon was built — she found a random assortment of pre-Columbian pottery from Mexico.

The artifacts had almost no identifying information, and Seymour knew next to nothing about them. But she knew they did not belong in a Nashville storage room.

“My first thought was, well, it’s going to get repatriated. It's got to go home,” she said during a recent interview.

That goal led to an exhibit, “ Repatriation and Its Impact," along with the discovery of the collection's strange origins, and even a quest to change the city's charter. It all started with a tax deduction.

It was the 1960s and Rich Montgomery says his father, an Oregon doctor, and some friends were looking for ways to lower their income taxes. Somehow they came upon the idea of using museum donations for deductions. In order to acquire objects to donate, they sent a college-aged Rich and his brother to Mexico in a Chevy Suburban they had tricked out for extra storage.

Rich had spent a year of high school in Mazatlan and was familiar with artifacts called Colima dogs — pottery representations of small, chubby hairless dogs that were often placed in tombs. As the name implies, they are associated with the Colima region. That gave the Montgomery brothers a place to start.

“So we we headed straight into Colima and we started asking about these items," he said. “You’d get on these dirt roads and wander up into the hills, and down into the valleys, and along the rivers, and come to these little pueblos and just ask around for this stuff. People would come up with it, and we would buy them.”

The pieces they bought included figurines and ocarinas. They had little apparent value to the local farmers — Montgomery said the people considered them junk and were happy to sell them for a few pesos each. He also emphasizes that they did not try to smuggle them out.

“At no point did we ever think or feel that we’re doing anything illegal,” he said. “We would show this stuff to the Mexican authorities as we left the country, and those guys could care less about it. And when we came into the US, we would show it to the customs people here on this side. And the rules back then were very clear. If it’s an antique, it's over 100 years old, there was no duty on it. Off we'd go.”

Mexico had laws, even back then, to prevent artifacts from leaving the country, but they were not evenly enforced, said Javier Diaz de Leon, the Mexican consul general in Atlanta who has been working with Seymour on the repatriation. In recent years, people have become more aware of the ethical issues around keeping artifacts that were taken from other countries without proper authorization, Diaz de Leon said.

“It’s a greater conscience," he said. “People come to us, are coming to us, all over the world, voluntarily saying, ‘I got this. It came to our hands. But we don’t think we should have it. We think we belongs to the Mexican people.’ And that is the sort of transition that we are very happy about.”

The consul general has nothing but praise for Seymour.

When she began this effort two years ago, the Parthenon had no policy for deaccession — removing an item from a collection. Meanwhile, Nashville's charter required the artifacts to be treated as surplus property, which is normally either redistributed within Metro government or sold at auction. Seymour worked with council members on an ordinance to allow their return to Mexico. It was approved in May, but it was a one-time fix. Her next step is to revise the charter.

Meanwhile, she hopes the collection will find a more appropriate home at the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Mexico City where it will fit into the institution’s mission.

“Hopefully, they’re going to research them and put them on display,” she said.

While she is sad to see the collection go, Seymour has commissioned a 3-D printed model of a Colima dog they can use to continue to tell the story. Ultimately, she said repatriation is simply the right thing to do. At the Parthenon “it’s not being utilized. It’s a waste.”

Montgomery has no idea how his father got connected with the city's Parthenon, which operates a small museum inside a full-scale replica of the ancient Greek temple in Nashville's Centennial Park. However it happened, the museum now has 255 pre-Columbian pieces donated by Montgomery and someone named Edgar York, whom Seymour knows even less about.

That lack of information is part of the point in the exhibit, which displays a selection of the collection's small adornments, zoomorphic images, ceramic pots, musical instruments and hand tools with only generic labels, their exact provenance unknown. It notes that research by Vanderbilt University students in the 1990s raised questions about the authenticity of some pieces. A 2014 review determined they were “outside the Parthenon's mission.”

Some people can have a finders-keepers attitude toward repatriation efforts, while others blame museums for holding onto artifacts looted from other countries, so Seymour wanted to be very transparent.

“Museums aren’t evil institutions trying to keep people’s stuff away from them. We are actually trying to figure out what to do,” she said.

Guests visit the exhibit 'Repatriation and its Impact' at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate pre-Columbian artifacts back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Parthenon's Registrar and Assistant Curator Bonnie Seymour packs a pre-Columbian artifact from Mexico into boxes Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the items back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Parthenon's Registrar and Assistant Curator Bonnie Seymour packs a pre-Columbian artifact from Mexico into boxes Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the items back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Parthenon's Registrar and Assistant Curator Bonnie Seymour packs pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexico into boxes Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the items back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexico are seen at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the pieces back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

The Parthenon's Registrar and Assistant Curator Bonnie Seymour packs pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexico into boxes Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the items back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Guests visit the exhibit 'Repatriation and its Impact' at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate pre-Columbian artifacts back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexico are displayed as part of the 'Repatriation and Its Impact' exhibit at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the pieces back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Kara Gilbert visits the exhibit 'Repatriation and its Impact' at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate pre-Columbian artifacts back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Timothy and Tracy Almy view pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexico in the 'Repatriation and Its Impact' exhibit at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the pieces back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Pre-Columbian artifacts from Mexico are displayed as part of the 'Repatriation and Its Impact' exhibit at The Parthenon, Tuesday, July 2, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. The museum is working to repatriate the pieces back to Mexico. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Debby has been downgraded from a tropical storm but is lashing the coasts of the Carolinas with rain. Into the weekend, forecasters say parts of the East Coast can expect heavy downpours, flash flooding and possible tornadoes. The mid-Atlantic states and parts of New York and New England will see significant rainfall that could cause dangerous flooding. Interstate 95 near bigger cities could be affected.

Here's the Latest:

In Maryland, parts of downtown Annapolis were under water Friday morning, including some areas on the U.S. Naval Academy campus.

Streets near the city dock often flood during storms and officials distributed sandbags on Thursday so residents and business owners could prepare.

Flash flood and tornado warnings were also issued across the state Friday morning.

Residents of a North Carolina neighborhood were asked to evacuate due to the threat of river flooding.

WGHP-TV reports that Alamance County Emergency Management officials had first-responders go door-to-door on Thursday to urge people in about 30 houses along the Haw River to relocate because of the flood threat.

The Haw River is expected to crest just over moderate flood stage in the town of the same name on Friday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. The town of Haw River is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Raleigh.

Emergency crews performed 33 high water rescues in a South Carolina county Friday after up to 9 inches (23 centimeters) of rain fell overnight from the remnants of Debby.

No deaths or serious injuries were reported from the storm, Berkeley County spokesperson Taylor James said.

The flooding in Berkeley County was most serious around Moncks Corner, which was hit by a tornado in one of Debby’s storm bands early Tuesday.

The flooding isolated the Cane Bay subdivision of thousands of houses where officials were asking residents to stay home until the water subsides and roads clear.

Dozens of roads across the area were closed including the eastbound lanes of Interstate 26 about 30 miles (48 kilometers) away from Charleston. Traffic cameras showed standing water across the lanes, which have concrete walls on either side as crews work to widen the highway.

The remnants of Debby were centered more than 300 miles (483 kilometers) north of Berkeley County.

A 78-year-old woman in North Carolina died after a tree fell on her home Thursday, raising the death toll from Debby to at least eight.

That is according to Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.

The woman’s house is in an unincorporated community called Browns Summit, in Rockingham County and northeast of Greensboro.

On Thursday alone, tornadoes spawned by Debby leveled homes, damaged a school and killed one person, as the system dropped heavy rain and flooded communities across the Carolinas.

The town of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, was hit early Friday by flash flooding from the remnants of Debby, with the National Weather Service saying it received reports of up to 3 feet (0.9 meters) of fast-moving water in roadways.

“We have multiple swift water rescue teams responding to flooded areas,” officials in surrounding Berkeley County said on the social platform X, and an emergency shelter was opened at Berkeley Middle School.

The water flooded homes and businesses in Moncks Corner, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) inland from Charleston.

The town earlier in the week was damaged — including businesses battered and vehicles flipped over — after Debby spawned tornadoes.

Accuweather’s chief meteorologist Jon Porter said Debby will be remembered for its “very slow movement,” dumping large amounts of rain throughout North Carolina.

Some parts of the state saw 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 7.6 centimeters) of rain an hour — a rate capable of catastrophic flooding, he said.

And even though the rainfall is ending in some areas, Porter warned people still need to be vigilant about runoff from waterways that could have lingering flooding issues for several days. Heavy rainfall is still expected in northern parts of North Carolina into Thursday night, he said.

Over the next few days, the heaviest rain will be west of the Interstate 95 corridor, especially in more mountainous areas where the terrain forces the storm up in elevation and wrings out its tropical moisture, Porter said. That could lead to flash flooding.

Mid-Atlantic states and parts of New York and New England will also see significant rainfall that could cause dangerous flooding into the weekend, including on parts of I-95 near bigger cities. From eastern Virginia up to Vermont, there may be an active stretch of tornadoes on Friday, he said.

“There will be multiple threats in Debby’s final chapter, and it’s a dangerous one,” he said.

Porter said there’s a “long way to go” for hurricane season, noting the historic peak of the season is in mid-September. He anticipates the next few weeks will be a “more active time period” for major tropical storms to crop up in the Atlantic.

Some residents of Southeast Georgia were warned to brace for additional flooding Thursday even after Debby had cleared out for the Carolinas, as rivers swollen with rainfall overflowed their banks.

The Ogeechee River west of Savannah was forecast to reach its major flood stage Thursday night. The National Weather Service predicted the river would continue to rise before cresting at 19.5 feet (6 meters) early Sunday.

Emergency officials in Effingham County called for residents of two roads near the Ogeechee River to evacuate Thursday. In neighboring Chatham County, which includes Savannah, officials were allowing residents to decide whether to leave.

“Expect water where you have not seen water before,” Chatham County Commission Chairman Chester Ellis told a news conference. He added: “If you have a substantial amount of water in your yards, I would say evacuate now while you still have a chance.”

Chatham County officials said rescue teams with boats had already taken 17 people to safety from homes threatened by river flooding. Ellis estimated more than 250 people live in the area.

The National Hurricane Center has downgraded Debby to a tropical depression.

Debby has maximum sustained wind speeds of 35 mph (55 kph), as of the weather service's latest advisory at around 4:30 p.m. Thursday. That's just below the threshold to be classified a tropical storm.

Debby originally made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The slow-moving storm was positioned over North Carolina as of Thursday afternoon.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said one prayer has been answered in his state with no deaths or major damage from Tropical Storm Debby.

Now he said the state is waiting to see how bad flooding upstream gets.

Debby moved out of South Carolina on Thursday afternoon after dumping rain there for more than three days. But McMaster said the storm’s effects aren’t completely over.

Rain falling in North Carolina could swell rivers and cause flooding downstream in South Carolina in several days. Officials won’t know how bad that river flooding will be until the rains stops upstream in a day.

Debby brought widespread heavy rain to South Carolina. The highest total was nearly 16.6 inches (42 centimeters) in Green Pond in Colleton County.

North Carolina has increased the number of National Guard troops activated and added more rescue vehicles into the mix as rains from Tropical Storm Debby continue to drench the state.

The state “continues to face unrelenting rain and destruction from Tropical Storm Debby,” said Gov. Roy Cooper on Thursday at a National Guard armory in Kinston.

Some 374 guard members were ready to help respond with 131 vehicles, Cooper said.

One death has been reported in North Carolina after a home collapsed in a likely tornado in Wilson County in one of Debby’s storm bands. The overall death toll from Debby stands at seven.

It doesn’t look like North Carolina will suffer as badly as it did in massive floods from Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence. The state has helped repair or rebuild 14,000 homes from that pair of billion-dollar disasters, Cooper said.

Authorities say a tornado death in North Carolina has raised Tropical Storm Debby’s death toll to seven.

The latest death was reported Thursday in Lucama, North Carolina.

Wilson County spokesman Stephen Mann confirmed the death in an email. No further details were immediately provided.

At least six other people have died due to the storm, five of them in traffic accidents or from fallen trees. The sixth death involved a man in Gulfport, Florida, whose body was recovered after his anchored sailboat partially sank.

Interstate 95 in North Carolina has reopened after flooding shut down a part of one of the major highways along the East Coast on Thursday morning.

A portion of the highway around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was closed for about three hours after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said.

About 5 inches (13 centimeters) of rain fell in the area overnight.

An average of more than 50,000 vehicles a day pass through the stretch of I-95, the freeway that connects Florida to Maine.

A falling tree smashed the windshield of two deputies patrol cars overnight as they surveyed flooded roads in a North Carolina county.

Bladen County officials posted images overnight of flooded and cracked roads in the county and downed trees.

The sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post that a tree fell on a patrol car, cracking the windshield. The two deputies inside were not injured.

The county also issued a voluntary evacuation order for residents of Bladenboro, with a shelter open at West Bladen High School.

Elsewhere in the state, a part of Interstate 95 around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was shut down after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said. Troopers gave no indication of when the interstate could reopen.

In southeastern North Carolina, near the state line, as much as three feet of standing water was reported in Bladenboro.

That prompted authorities to shut down roads into the town.

“Bladenboro has been barricaded off from the rest of the county,” the National Weather Service said in a post on X. The weather service said a flash flood emergency had been declared for the county.

Elsewhere in the state, a part of Interstate 95 around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was shut down after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said. Troopers gave no indication of when the interstate could reopen.

Flooding closed one of the major highways along the East Coast on Thursday morning. A part of Interstate 95 around Fayetteville, North Carolina, was shut down after water topped the freeway, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said. Troopers gave no indication of when the interstate could reopen.

At least 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain have fallen in the area since Debby first started crawling toward the region.

An average of more than 50,000 vehicles a day pass through the stretch of I-95, the freeway that connects Florida to Maine.

An apparent tornado spawned as Debby’s outer bands blew through North Carolina damaged at least four houses, a church and a school in Wilson County east of Raleigh, county officials said.

The county said in a statement the tornado touched down around 3 a.m. Thursday. No injuries were immediately reported.

The storm could bring more tornadoes as the day goes on in parts of North Carolina and Virginia, forecasters said.

Debby on Wednesday influenced thunderstorms from the East Coast to the Great Lakes. And the National Weather Service’s office in Charleston said survey teams earlier confirmed four-Debby related tornadoes.

Tropical Storm Debby is heading up the East Coast as it has made landfall for a second time. The National Hurricane Center says Debby came ashore early Thursday near Bulls Bay, South Carolina.

The storm is expected to keep moving inland, spreading heavy rain and possible flooding all the way up through the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast by the weekend. Debby first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

As Debby drenches South Carolina, heavy rainfall from the tropical storm is also expected to cause flooding across portions of the mid-Atlantic states and Northeast through Saturday morning.

In Bulloch County northwest of Savannah, Georgia, at least four dams have been breached by floodwaters, but so far no fatalities have been reported, authorities said at a Wednesday news briefing.

More than 75 people have been rescued from floodwaters in the county, said Corey Kemp, the county’s director of emergency management. About 100 roads have been closed, he said.

“We’ve been faced with a lot of things we’ve never been faced with before,” Commission Chairman Roy Thompson said. “I’m 78-plus years old and have never seen anything like this before in Bulloch County. It’s amazing what has happened, and amazing what is going to continue to happen until all these waters get out of here.”

Gene Taylor was waiting for a few inches of water to drain back out of his home as high tide passed Wednesday afternoon at his home along French Quarter Creek, not far from the Cooper River in Huger and about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Charleston.

This is the fourth time his home's been flooded in the past nine years, and he heeded the warnings this time, moving things up or out.

“To save everything, we’ve learned from the past it’s better be prepared for the worst. And unfortunately, I think we got it,” Taylor said. “We got caught with our pants down in 2015. We waited, didn’t think the water was going to come up as quick. But it did, and it caught us. We couldn’t even get the vehicles out.”

A few doors down, Charles Granger was cleaning up after about 8 inches (20 centimeters) of water got into his home — a common annoyance now.

“Eight inches disrupts your whole life,” Grainger said. “You don’t get used to it. You just grin and bear it. It’s part of living on the creek.”

Water levels are rising as Tropical Storm Debby's rainfall drains out to sea. The National Weather Service in Charleston tweeted that the Canoochee River in Claxton, Georgia have neared 18 feet, surpassing previous flood record set in 1925.

No deaths or injuries have been reported from Tropical Story Debby in South Carolina, but Gov. Henry McMaster said Wednesday that the state was just entering Act 2 of a three-act play.

“We’ve been lucky so far. Things have not been as bad as they could have been,” McMaster said of heavy rains Monday and Tuesday that caused flooding that damaged over 60 homes but did not cause significant problems to roads or water systems.

Act 2 is overnight into Thursday when Debby moves back onshore and heavy rain returns, this time to the northern part of the coast and inland. An additional 4 to 8 inches of rain could fall, said John Quagliariello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Columbia.

“It may not be as catastrophic as what we were saying, but we still think as these rain bans develop they could sit over the same area for long periods of time, produce a lot of rainfall and a lot of flooding,” Quagliariello said.

The final act may come next week if enough rain falls upstream in North Carolina to cause major flooding along rivers as it flows to the Atlantic Ocean.

A person wears flip flops as they ride their bike through a puddle in Ottawa, Ontario, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

A golf cart sits in flood waters on Atlantic Ave. as Tropical Storm Debby approaches, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Sullivan's Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)

Gene Taylor watches the flood waters around his house in the historic district of French Quarter Creek as flood waters recede from Tropical Storm Debby, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Huger, S.C. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)

Charles Grainger cleans up around his house in the historic district of French Quarter Creek as flood waters recede from Tropical Storm Debby, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Huger, S.C. (AP Photo/Mic Smith)

Emily Peterson Dowless, left, walks past her business Market on Main as residual rain water floods the downtown area caused by Tropical Storm Debby, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Bladenboro, NC. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Randy Sikes speaks to his relatives on a mobile phone as he stands in residual rain water flooding the downtown area caused by Tropical Storm Debby, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Bladenboro, NC. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

A middle school in Wilson County, North Carolina is seen on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, after being damaged by a tornado spawned by Tropical Storm Debby. (Christopher Long/The Wilson Times via AP)

Randy Sikes speaks to his relatives on a mobile phone as he stands in residual rain water flooding the downtown area caused by Tropical Storm Debby, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Bladenboro, NC. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The Latest: A downgraded Debby still threatens with heavy rain and flooding

The Latest: A downgraded Debby still threatens with heavy rain and flooding

A house is damaged by a tornado spawned by Tropical Storm Debby in Wilson County, N.C. on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. (Christopher Long/The Wilson Times via AP)