April 3, 2009

Peru v. Yale: A Battle Rages Over Machu Picchu

By DAVID GLENN

Lawsuit claims university must return artifacts

In early 1916, the legendary Yale University archaeologist Hiram Bingham III completed his third and final expedition in southern Peru. He shipped home 74 boxes of artifacts from Machu Picchu, a spectacular site in the Andes that is believed to have been the last major settlement of the Inca empire.

Those boxes were supposed to be on temporary loan and sent back to Peru by July 1917, according to the government decree that

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