Peru-Yale Machu Picchu Controversy Part 3

Peru dispute has long, murky past: Fate of Incan artifacts found by Hiram Bingham in 1911 may be decided in court

Source: Yale Daily News by Andrew Mangino, Staff Reporter

April 14, 2006

Hike a mere half-mile up Hillhouse Avenue, take a right on Sachem Street, and
a mysterious world 3,500 miles away suddenly emerges: the ancient Inca
society at Machu Picchu, Peru.

Unassumingly sandwiched between plain classroom buildings, the Yale
Peabody Museum, home to the exhibit, features an epic photo of rolling canyons and
ancient clay homes. An Inca Aryballos for holding corn beer sits in a glass
case. Three Sapa Incans are dressed in colorful robes. An eerie whisperer utters
over the PA system in Quechua, the native Incan language.

On the dark wall, a photograph of Yale historian Hiram Bingham III, who
excavated the artifacts and many more from the region in 1911, is pictured as
part of the original expedition that, the poster reads, included topographers,
medical doctors, a geologist, an osteologist, an archeological engineer and
even several Yale students.

But one central part of the story is conveniently missing from the
exhibit: a 95-year-old tale of discovery and deceit, world-class research and
nationalist movements, politics and pride, ambiguity and conviction. It is the
illustrious tale of the ever-changing relationship between Yale and Peru, a
partnership that hit its lowest point yet last month when the Peruvian government
reiterated its demand for the artifacts to be returned and declared its intention
to sue the University in the coming months…

Long before relations turned sour, though, Yale and Peru were close
partners. Peru had benefited from the endless publicity Yale was garnering for
their country. Meanwhile, Yale researchers had gained an edge over other
archeologists, suddenly possessing mysterious artifacts bound to provoke endless
intellectual discovery.

In fact, it took a cooperative effort, between Bingham and a Peruvian
named Melchor Arteaga, to reach Machu Picchu, the only remaining undiscovered
city of the lost Incan empire. And Peruvian academics and indigenous people
relished his fascination.

Peruvian President Augusto Leguia granted a 10-year extension to
Bingham’s efforts, and local newspapers hailed the tourism boom that Bingham’s
expedition would surely bring, according to Chris Heaney ’03, who received a
Fulbright Scholarship to live in Peru and write a book on the controversy.
“Where others had seen rubble or tombs for looting, though, Bingham saw
perfect white granite stonework and temples recalling the Incas’ oldest
creation myths,” Heaney wrote in a recent Legal Affairs article.

But just as Bingham reached the pinnacle of his popularity in Peru, the
showdown that would come 95 years later was subtly foreshadowed. Some Peruvian
intellectuals expressed dismay at the exportation of precious Peruvian
treasures.

And according to documents obtained by the News, the Peruvian government,
too, had no intention of transferring property rights to Yale or to the
National Geographic Society, Bingham’s co-sponsoring organization. If not
immediately, records show that Peru expected everything back.
One document, an agreement signed between Bingham and Peru in 1912,
included a caveat that may prove central to impending legal arguments: “The
Peruvian Government reserves to itself the right to exact from Yale University and
the National Geographic Society of the United States of America the return of
the unique specimens and duplicates.”

Yale, 95 years later, had a counter-argument. It cited, without
specifics, an 1852 civil code in Peru that gave Yale “title to the artifacts at the
time of their excavation and ever since.”

While many archeological experts agree that Yale has taken great care of
the artifacts, few said they support their legal position.

“The position of Yale, as reported, seems a very contradictory one,” said
famed archeologist Lord Colin Renfrew of Cambridge University. “If it’s a
loan, then it’s legally the property of the lender. I find the whole thing
breathtakingly arrogant.”

Yet the story had not entered its nearly century-long hibernation yet. In
1921, after Bingham had served as a high-ranking officer in World War I, a
Peru consulate invoked the contract, requesting that all the excavated artifacts
be returned. Bingham himself had even expressed in a letter obtained by the
News in 1915 that artifacts were property of Peru, not Yale.

But Heaney said relations between Peru and foreigners soured in the years
during the war. Bingham had become suddenly disappointed in Peru. Yale
returned no artifacts from Machu Picchu and a little over half of the essentially
worthless boxes of bones obtained in a 1915 expedition elsewhere in Peru. In one
sense, the issue was whether Peru could be trusted to care for artifacts
still brimming with mystery.

“Peru has a long history of problems in terms of security of its
collections,” said Yale professor Richard Burger, the Yale-Peabody Museum exhibit
curator who helped to resurrect research on the controversial artifacts.

Citing a recent robbery of more than 4,000 artifacts from the Peru
national museum, Burger said the law is clearly on Yale’s side, but also
acknowledged Yale’s ability to have preserved them over the past century.
After all, at the time of their introduction to Yale, students on campus
may have seen the Peru artifacts as having been rightfully obtained as
“treasure” only after a long and tiring struggle by Bingham and his team. In an
article published in the News on Jan. 13, 1913, the artifacts are curiously
referred to as “trophies” in the headline.

From another perspective, Yale does indeed have much reason to be proud
of its unmatched work on the Machu Picchu. Burger, who is largely credited
along with his wife for popularizing recent research on the site, said that all
students throughout the world who learn about the Incan culture are able to do
so much in part due to Yale research.

The question of timing also has rich historical roots. One explanation,
as suggested by Roger Atwood, an author on antiquity looting, is the
convergence of political, cultural and global factors. Politically, Peru’s current first
lady, who is of French descent and is relatively unpopular in Peru, has
outspokenly advocated for the artifacts. Culturally, Atwood said, there is a
counter-globalization feeling among the people that inspires them to support such
policies.

And globally, there has been a recent trend of showdowns between
universities and countries that claim that their exhibits were looted. But Atwood said
the circumstances surrounding Yale’s apprehension of the artifacts must be
distinguished from looting cases.

“Whatever the standards were, it seems pretty clear to me that Hiram
Bingham wasn’t looting,” Atwood said. “It reminds me [more] of colonial plunder.
We know exactly where they are from, and the removal from the place of origin
does have this kind of whiff of colonialism to it.”

The other explanation is a solution in disguise. In some sense, the
recent success of Machu Picchu research in America — Burger said, “Wherever you
go, people are saying I want to go to Machu Picchu” — lends itself to the idea
that Peruvians are in some way envious and looking to expand the very scarce
collection of Incan artifacts that currently exists in Peru.

Thomson said Burger’s fundamental interest in discovery will likely lead
him to devise a creative solution that perhaps concedes Peru’s rights to the
artifacts but also works out a loan or creative joint venture for the shared
benefit of both parties.

Ninety-five years after the relationship between Yale and Peru began, it
is at a low point, but an uncertain one. Elections in Peru have entered a
runoff, which may elect either a free-market advocate or a nationalist left-wing
candidate. And even if the lawsuit is filed, neither party — given the utter
significance of the precious artifacts in question — will concede easily.