BOGOTA Items of "incalculable" value that belonged to Simon Bolivar, a top Latin American historical figure, were stolen from a museum in the Colombian city of Cartagena de Indias, media reports said Tuesday.

Officials with the palace of the Inquisition Museum in the Caribbean city said 17 maps, 50 coins, a poncho and two sets of plates that were part of the Bolivar exhibit "inexplicably" disappeared from the building.

The theft of the objects belonging to Bolivar, a Venezuelan independence fighter known in South America as "El Libertador" ("the liberator"), was discovered Monday.

According to DPA, Vicente Martinez, a member of the Cartagena de Indias History Academy, called on the thieves to return the items.

"Their physical value is very small, but their historical value is incalculable," he said.

Bolivar was born in 1783 in Venezuela and died in 1830 in Colombia.