News: Peru Demands Return of Machu Picchu Artifacts

In the News:
Peru Asks Yale To Return Artifacts -- Courant.com

In the early 20th century, Hiram Bingham, a Yale professor, journeyed to Peru and brought back to the United States a large number of artifacts from the fabulous ruins at Machu Picchu. While this is past the time period of this story, it is relevant in that it involves foreigners who came to Peru, made collections of artifacts, and took them away to other countries.

As I understand it, it was not until after the War of the Pacific that Peru made laws that applied to the export of antiquities. It has been said that these laws were a direct result of the transfer of collections to other parts of the world, although admittedly this may have been done to preserve the collections from the war zone.

I don't know the exact nature of the agreement between Peru and Yale, but supposedly the artifacts that Bingham took back to Yale were taken on loan. They were to be returned to Peru at some later point in time, which never occurred.

In 2005, Peru initiated a new request to have the artifacts returned. In September 2007, there was a memorandum of understanding drawn up, and a Yale archeologist, Richard Burger, inventoried the items, and designated which ones were of museum quality. Those that were of museum quality were to be included in an international exhibit, and eventually were to arrive back in Peru to be put into a museum.

With the inventory in progress, the full extent of the size of the collection became evident, amounting to perhaps 40,000 items. Peru is now asking for the return of the entire collection.