Peru Prepares Lawsuit Against Yale University
To Get Back Machu Picchu Relics
LIMA, Peru
Peru is preparing a lawsuit against Yale University to retrieve artifacts taken nearly a century ago from the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, says a Peruvian government official.
Peru has held discussions in recent years with Yale seeking the return of nearly 5,000 artifacts, including ceramics and human bones that explorer Hiram Bingham III dug up during three expeditions to Machu Picchu in 1911, 1912 and 1914.
“Yale considers the collection university property, given the amount of time it has been there,” says Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, chief of Peru’s National Institute of Culture.
“This is something we do not recognize because the pieces were legally granted in a temporary loan,” he adds. “That is the reason it will be necessary to air this in the courts and no longer simply on the level of diplomatic conversations.”
Peru’s Foreign Ministry is preparing the legal case and would likely present it in Connecticut state court, although Lumbreras says it is not clear when the lawsuit would be filed.
According to Lumbreras, former Peruvian President Augusto B. Leguia gave Bingham “permission to temporarily export the objects for scientific ends,” with the agreement that the artifacts would be returned after one year. That later was extended by 18 months.
“Theoretically, they should have been returned after Jan. 27, 1916,” Lumbreras says. “The fact is, they weren’t returned.”
For decades, Peru did not pursue the matter, he says.
“It stayed that way for nearly 100 years,” Lumbreras continues. “The 100th anniversary of the scientific anniversary of Machu Picchu is coming. We believe it is time to return the collection.”
The Incas ruled Peru from the 1430s until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in 1532, constructing intricate stone-block cities and roads and developing a highly organized society that extended from modern-day Colombia to Chile.
The reconstructed ruins at Machu Picchu, located on a craggy mountaintop above a lush valley about 310 miles southeast of Lima, are Peru’s top tourist attraction.
Bingham, the first foreigner to reach Machu Picchu, had multiple theories about the city. He theorized that it was perhaps a religious estate inhabited mostly by women, a last Inca stronghold abandoned as the Spanish invaded or the Incas’ city of origin.
Experts now say Bingham was wrong on all counts. Machu Picchu was, in fact, a summer estate for royalty, a sort of Camp David for the Inca ruler Pachacuti. About 600 people, mostly royalty and their servants, are believed to have lived there during the summer.
After his explorations, Bingham turned to politics. He served one day as Connecticut governor in 1925 before resigning to take a seat in Congress.
— Associated Press
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