December 10, 2012

After Century of Dispute, Peru and Yale Join Forces to Give Incan Artifacts a Home

After Century of Dispute, Peru and Yale Join Together to Give Incan Artifacts a Home 1

Reuters, Enrique Castro-Mendivil

Artifacts taken from Peru a century ago by a Yale historian are now on display at the Machu Picchu Museum, in Cusco, Peru, the result of a hard-won partnership between Yale and Peru.

By Goldie Blumenstyk

Cusco, Peru

Peru and Yale University spent nearly a hundred years fighting over the repatriation of thousands of Machu Picchu artifacts and human remains, a dispute that included street protests, lawsuits, and even a threat by Peru to bring criminal charges against Yale.

But you wouldn't know it from the exhibits at the Machu Picchu Museum here, where many of those very same urns, knives, and jewelry pieces taken from the mountaintop Inca palace in the 1910s by an adventurous Yale history