Traveling artifacts to go home?

Yale University houses an excellent collection of artifacts recovered from Machu Picchu in the Andes Mountains of Peru in 1911 by Yale alumni and explorer for America Hiram Bingham. Now, after more than 90 years, those artifacts may find their way back to their original owners.

In mid-September years and years of negotiations between Peruvian officials and employees of Yale University finally came to an end.

“Finally it has been established that Peru is the owner of each one of the pieces,” Housing Minister Hernan Garrido Lecca, who led negotiations with Yale, told Lima’s Radioprogramas radio.

According to Peruvians, who requested the collection’s return last year, ownership of the items was never relinquished to Bingham in 1911. Yale first offered to split the collection of more than 4,000 artifacts from the archaeological site in Peru. Peru responded by threatening to bring a lawsuit against the university.

Now part of the collectin will become a traveling expedition co-sponsored by Yale and Peru. The two will also work on a museum in Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Inca.

“This understanding represents a new model of international cooperation providing for the collaborative stewardship of cultural and natural treasures,” Yale said in the statement.

Machu Picchu and the ruins there are one of Peru’s most important and popular tourist attractions.