The recent debate on the value of the study of archaeological pieces that have lost their original context led us to a conversation with one of the greatest scholars of the history of the Andean Art, and certainly the most important pre-Columbian cultures of Ecuador: Tom Cummins, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian and Colonial Art History at Harvard University, Massachusetts. PhD. In History of Pre-Columbian Art since 1988, at UCLA.



Cummins was in Ecuador between 1987 and 1989 as part of an agreement between the Central Bank Museum of Guayaquil and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During this period he worked with Olaf Holm and many of the foreign and national researchers, who visited Guayaquil and Quito during those years. He studied thousands of archeological pieces in Ecuadorian museums and made a brilliant synthesis of many artistic traditions of the pre-Columbian Ecuador. He has published several articles on the subject, along with Constaza Di Capua, are the only pre-Columbian art historians in the country. His vision of anthropological archaeology is broad and experienced, so their approach is recognized and respected worldwide.

This casual conversation occurred spontaneously. Our aim was to obtain their professional point of view on a controversial and sensitive issue. Herein we reproduce some concepts that can guide us in the debate on the subject.