Kim MacQuarrie’s Peru & South America Blog
Peru says Yale has more Incan artifacts than first believed
Monday, April 14, 2008
LIMA (Reuters) — Peru says Yale University researchers took more than 40,000 artifacts from the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu in the early 1900s, or 10 times the original estimate, the state news agency reported Sunday.
A team from Peru’s National Institute of Culture traveled to the U.S. university in March to take an inventory of the pieces of pottery, jewelry and bones housed there, as part of an agreement to repatriate the relics.
Hernan Garrido Lecca, who is leading Peru’s drive to reclaim the objects, released the inventory results to state news agency Andina…
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Yale and the Machu Picchu Artifacts
March 3, 2008
Letter to NYT
To the Editor:
Re “The Lost Treasure of Machu Picchu,” by Eliane Karp-Toledo (Op-Ed, Feb. 23):
Peru and Yale share the premise that Machu Picchu belongs to humanity as a cultural patrimony of the world declared by Unesco. Yale recognizes the importance of Machu Picchu to Peruvian identity and history and has always sought an amicable resolution that recognizes a shared interest in stewardship and scholarship.
The memorandum of understanding between the government of Peru under the leadership of President Alan García and Yale University provides that Peru will have sole title to the Machu Picchu materials, including research materials at Yale.
The memorandum also provides for the creation of an international traveling exhibit at Yale’s expense and the return to Peru of almost all museum-quality objects currently held at Yale.
The memorandum further provides for Yale’s participation in advising a Peruvian museum and research center and scholarly exchanges. All of this will be in a collaborative framework.
Helaine Klasky
Associate Vice President, Yale University
New Haven
The Lost Treasure of Machu Picchu
By ELIANE KARP-TOLEDO
February 23, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
NYT
Stanford, Calif.
Sure, it seemed like a great idea when, last September, President Alan García of Peru reached a preliminary agreement with Yale about the disposition of more than 350 artifacts taken from Machu Picchu. Everyone hoped the settlement might be a break for cultural understanding in the cloudy skies of international cooperation. News reports suggested that Yale would return more than 350 museum-quality artifacts, plus several thousand fragments thought to be of interest mainly to researchers — all of which were taken from the mountaintop Inca archaeological complex nearly a century ago — and that legal title to all the artifacts, even those to be left at Yale for research, would be held by Peru.
But having finally obtained a copy of the agreement, I can see that Yale continues to deny Peru the right to its cultural patrimony, something Peru has demanded since 1920.
When, in 1912 and 1914-15, the explorer Hiram Bingham III excavated the treasures from Machu Picchu — ceramic vessels, silver statues, jewelry and human bones — and took them from Peru, it was supposed to be a loan for 12 months (a period that was later extended a half-year). The National Geographic Society, which co-sponsored Bingham’s explorations, has acknowledged that the artifacts were taken on loan and is committed to seeing them returned to Peru…
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