Peru-Yale Machu Picchu Controversy Part 11

Peru wants Yale to return artifacts

April 17, 2008

Associated Press

NEW HAVEN, Conn. –In the latest twist in a long running dispute, Peru wants Yale University to return thousands of artifacts it is holding from the famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu.

Peru’s government and Yale had reached a memorandum of understanding last year to return about 4,000 pieces that had been taken from the site a century ago. The preliminary agreement called for Yale and Peru to co-sponsor first a traveling expedition featuring the pieces, and later a museum in the Andean city of Cuzco, the ancient Inca capital.

But the two sides have been unable so far to reach a final agreement on the mummies, ceramics, bones and other artifacts.

Peru officials have sent a letter to Yale with a counterproposal calling for all the pieces to be returned to Peru, according to Vladimir Kocerha, press officer for the Peruvian embassy in Washington, D.C.

“The counterproposal is for all the pieces to come back,” Kocerha said Thursday. “The ball right now is in Yale’s court.”

Kocerha would not say what prompted the new demand, but the agreement has sparked some criticism in Peru.

“Negotiations are continuing in the spirit of the memorandum of understanding,” Kocerha said.

Yale had no comment, said spokesman Tom Conroy.

In the agreement reached last fall, Yale said it would acknowledge Peru’s title to all the excavated objects from Machu Picchu.

“Simultaneously, in the spirit of collaboration, Peru will share with Yale rights in the research collection, part of which will remain at Yale as objects of ongoing research,” a joint statement said at the time.

Peru demanded the collection back in 2006, saying it had never relinquished ownership when Yale scholar Hiram Bingham III rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911 and had the artifacts exported to the university. Peru officials threatened to sue, but never did.

The ruins at Machu Picchu, located on a mountaintop above a lush valley southeast of Lima, are Peru’s top tourist attraction.

The two sides also have not agreed on the number of artifacts.

Health Minister Hernan Garrido Lecca, who is heading negotiations with Yale, said Sunday that a government-led commission found that the university has more than 40,000 artifacts.

On Wednesday, the Peruvian government released a five-volume inventory concluding that Yale holds a total of 46,332 objects and fragments from Machu Picchu.

Conroy said the difference stems from how the pieces are counted. For example, he said, fragments from one object could be counted as one piece or more based on the number of fragments.

Yale is continuing to pursue a final agreement, Conroy said.