Peru Says Will Sue Yale to Recover Inca Artifacts
Date: 03-Mar-06
Country: USA
Author: Claudia Parsons
Peru is seeking the return of some 4,900 artifacts from the Inca citadel, including ceramics, cloths and metalwork. Peru says they were lent to Yale for 18 months in 1916, but the New Haven, Connecticut, university has kept them ever since.
"Yale does not recognize the Peruvian state's ownership of these artifacts," Peru's Ambassador to Washington, Eduardo Ferrero, said in a statement. He complained that after three years of talks, Yale officials were not acting in "good faith."
The statement said US explorer Hiram Bingham had originally been given permission to export the items on the understanding that they were on loan and would be returned.
The university said in a statement sent to Reuters on Thursday that it had submitted a revised proposal last week for a settlement that would include returning many of the objects.
"We are disappointed that the government has rejected this proposal and is apparently determined to sue Yale University," the statement said. It said the collection was legally excavated and exported "in line with practices of the time."
"We are disappointed that the government of Peru has broken off negotiations before the upcoming elections in Peru, instead of working out the framework for a stable and long-term resolution," it said. Peru holds elections in April.
The statement said Yale had proposed to work with the government of Peru to set up parallel exhibitions of Inca objects at Yale and at a new museum to be built in Peru.
Peru has been seeking to retrieve the artifacts now because it aims to put them on public display in 2011 for the centenary of Machu Picchu's rediscovery by Bingham.
Peru's ambassador said the latest Yale proposal was unacceptable because it did not recognize Peru's ownership of the items. "(Yale) maintains that these archeological artifacts belong to humanity, but at the same time it is trying to appropriate them as part of its collection," Ferrero said.
"The Peruvian government ... will bring a suit against Yale University before the American courts," Ferrero said.
Bingham, a Yale alumni, found Machu Picchu in the Andes under thick forest in 1911. The pre-Columbian ruins of an entire city were essentially forgotten, perched on a mountain saddle 8,400 feet (2,560 metres) above sea level.
Machu Picchu lay at the heart of the Inca empire, which dominated South America from Colombia to Chile until being toppled by Spanish conquerors in the 1530s. The site attracts half a million tourists every year.
(Additional reporting by Marco Aquino in Lima)