Incan artefacts at Yale to be returned to Peru (Yale returns stolen artifacts)

Financial Times ^ | Feb 11, 2011 | Naomi Mapstone

[eleni121]

One hundred years after American explorer Hiram Bingham took tens of thousands of artefacts from the Incan city of Machu Picchu back to his alma mater, Yale University is sending them home.

[eleni121]

This should serve as another legal precedent (forget the morality of it all) for the return to the country of origin of many other stolen artifacts such as the greatest example of looting of all: The Parthenon Frieze which stands (in the British Museum) isolated and separated from its home in Athens on the Acropolis.

[eleni121]

PING

[billorites]

I'll take my head back while yer at it.

[La Lydia]

The Parthenon Frieze would be rubble and sand were it not for Lord Elgin. The Incan artifacts would be in private hoards if it were not for for Hiram Bingham.

[kbennkc]

SSSh. You will get double secret probation.

[JoeProBono]

Hiram Bingham photographed this excavation of a human skeleton in a cave at Machu Picchu during the Yale University and National Geographic Society-funded expedtion of 1912.

[SeeSharp]

What about all those Egyptian artifacts? Should they be returned too? What would have become of them in the last few weeks if they had?

There is no legitimate "collective ownership" and none of these museums should return anything unless a specific owner shows up and can prove his claim - not likely for the Parthenon Frieze.

[OrangeHoof]

While the Ivys are returning things, can we send Kenya back their president?

[eleni121]

Thanks for your silly comment.

[eleni121]

Oh how I wish...can we survive his presence 2 more years...

[Repeal The 17th]

A few pics that I could find:

[married21]

Indiana Jones hasn’t been reached for comment.

[golux]

I have wondered whether, or when, when this would happen.

Political correctness is finally more important to Yale than the guardianship and preservation of these priceless historical artifacts, about which not a damned soul on the southern continent cared for hundreds, or thousands, of years.

Fortunately a few items might survive the next fifty years so they can be melted down to form part of the new and improved Great Seal of the Estados Unidos de America, the one where the Eagle clutches two chimichangas, a U.S. welfare check, three Mexican IDs, and an “affirmative action” Yale acceptance letter.

Written in spanish.

[Batrachian]

"There is no legitimate "collective ownership" and none of these museums should return anything unless a specific owner shows up and can prove his claim - not likely for the Parthenon Frieze."

You mean if some foreign power, like say Iran, where somehow able to steal the Declaration of Independence, or the Liberty Bell, or some other thing, then they should be entitled to keep it? Those treasure hunters weren't trying to protect anything. In fact, their shoddy methods ended up destroying a great many antiquities, such as mummies. They weren't very pretty, or made of gold, so the treasure hunters simply dumped them in the desert. Don't defend the indefensible.

I know that instinctively, we think that noble Westerners are far more deserving to keep these treasures than miserable peasants who probably can't appreciate them at their worth anyway, but that is not a legitimate opinion. And, BTW, there is such a thing as patrimony.

[eleni121]

That argument is full of holes...literally. You ought to know that.

The “museums” have made tons of cash showing, marketing, and quite often mischaraterizing the cultural and historical creations of other peoples.

At the least they should be returned! So I steal my neighbor's whatever and tell him that I'll keep it because his lifestyle is not conducive to maintaining the property I've stolen???

Pretty dumb argument...you're better than that.

[golux]

You should look up The Parrot Joke.

[La Lydia]

I can’t help how you deal with the truth.

[bunkerhill7]

Oh to Yell With Yale!

[eleni121]

I can only deal with logic and morality not moronic statements like the one you posted.

[kabumpo]

They weren’t looted. Lord Elgin purchased them and saved them from destruction from the Turks. And they could never be restored to the actual Parthenon; the pollution in Athens is so heavy that the friezes would be damaged.