One of the oldest objects brought by a participant was this vase that may be more than 1000 years old. Patrick Thissen explains: “My father was a teacher at Paulus College in the 1950s and 1960s. One of his students brought him a blue sphere with a broken neck that his family had found on their property and offered it to my father. My mother cleaned the sphere at home. Only then did the clay color become visible with the drawings. This object has always stood on a table or in a cabinet at my parents’ house as a kind of relic.”

“Recently, the NAAM examined the object and it is indeed an artifact of the native inhabitants of Curaçao. It is not clear whether it is pre- or post-Columbian. The blue substance on the pot is more common. They are minerals that come out of the clay and oxidize. It can be clearly seen that the pot has been partially above the ground. In that spot, the pot has been bleached by the sun. Possibly the pot was used as a water reservoir.

“The pot came into my possession because it moved to the Netherlands after my parents’ emigration. There it stood in a cupboard. We thought the object belonged here on the island and took it back. A little superstition perhaps. In any case, it feels better.”