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, a government official said earlier this week.
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 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,” said Luis Guillermo Lumbreras, chief of Peru’s National Institute of Culture, in an interview with The Associated Press.
“This is something we do not recognize because the pieces were legally granted in a temporary loan. 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 was preparing the legal case and would likely present it in Connecticut state court, Lumbreras said. He said it was not clear when the lawsuit would be filed.
Richard Burger, chairman and director of graduate studies at Yale’s Council on Archaeological Studies, did not immediately return telephone messages seeking comment.
