Bundled in towels, and bubble-wrap, and in the backseat of Lisa Aronson’s car are six clay sculptures which have been family heirlooms passed down from her uncle to her parents before being given to her and her sisters.
And, while Dr. Aronson admired the works, unknown to her, they were part of another country’s national treasures.
So, she’s delivering them to the Mexican Consulate in Oxnard to be returned to their country of origin.
"My uncle was an anthropologist, and he gifted them to my parents. We had them all through our entire childhoods in our house sitting on the table," Aronson told KCLU.
"We enjoyed them but we didn't pay them much heed or recognize their particular value," she said.
The face of one of the clay statues looks up through the bubble wrap, perfectly preserved with eyebrows framing wide-set eyes, and even individual teeth - and what looks like a little hat.
"It's a Nayarit figure," Aronson said. She had the figures assessed via the Consulate, and they turned out to be genuine - not replicas - and dating back thousands of years.
With tears in her eyes, it’s an emotional goodbye to these ancient treasures that were part of her childhood home, but – says Aronson – her late parents and uncle would be proud to have them repatriated.
"First of all, any repair that needs to be done will be done correctly by the archeologists in Mexico who really understand their culture and their importance," she said.
"And they will be able to be viewed by all of the people in Mexico. I have a lot of affection for Mexico, I think it's a beautiful culture and a beautiful country," Aronson said, as she fully contemplated the enormity of passing these items - treasured mementos of her late parents - to generations to come.
There’s been a concerted effort by Mexico to recover artifacts from the Maya, Aztec and other pre-Hispanic cultures which have been taken out of the country – but they are hard to get people to return.
"I had never expected that here in the Oxnard area - in Ojai - we would find six different archeological artifacts that date back 2000 years and more - before Christ actually," said Euclides Del Moral, the Mexican Consul here.
"It was unexpected but at the same time I was glad that people were becoming more aware of our effort to recover cultural assets from around the world," he told KCLU.
The artifacts – some of which could be as much as 4000 years old – will be carefully shipped to Mexico where they’ll be examined and restored by experts and eventually displayed in a museum.
And Aronson says – she hopes other people who might find themselves in possession of ancient artifacts from the country, will choose to repatriate them rather than sell them.
