Posted on 01/10/2006 4:59:41 AM PST by Republicanprofessor
MACHU PICCHU, PERU – The Incas built this mysterious city here, it is told, to be closer to the gods. It was placed so high in the clouds, at 7,700 feet, that the empire- raiding Spaniards never found, or destroyed, it.
Today, visitors to Machu Picchu see well-preserved ruins hidden among the majestic Andes: complete with palaces, baths, temples, tombs, sundials, and agricultural terraces, and also llamas roaming among hundreds of gray granite houses.
But they won't find too many bowls, tools, ritual objects, or other artifacts used by the Incas of the late 1400s. To see those, they have to travel to New Haven, Conn.
Yale historian Hiram Bingham rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911, and, backed by the National Geographic Society, returned with large expeditions in 1912 and 1915, each time carting out - with supposed special permission from Peruvian President Augusto B. Leguía - crates filled with archeological finds.
But now, Peru is threatening to sue the Ivy League school, claiming the permission was either given illegally or misunderstood. The "treasures of Machu Picchu," states David Ugarte, regional director of Peru's National Culture Institute (INC), were given to the American explorer "on loan."
Peru's tussle with the university is not a unique case. From the time Greece started demanding the British Museum return the Elgin Marbles in 1820, to last month, when Italy demanded that the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art give them back objects including the Euphronios Krater, a 500 BC vase, countries of origin have steadily grown more assertive about retrieving their cultural heritage.
"This is our patrimony. This is everything to us - proof that even though today we are poor, our ancestors lived great and proud," explains Mr. Ugarte. "Bingham said he was going to study those pieces and give them back. It was clear to all they were to be returned."
Yale claims in a Dec. 8 letter to Peru that "the civil code of 1852, which was in effect at the time of the Bingham expeditions, gave Yale title to the artifacts at the time of their excavation and ever since."
Colin Renfrew, professor of archeology at Cambridge University in England, says the key to resolving the case hinges on the answer to "what was the deal between Bingham and Peru at the time?" But the answer to that, he admits, "is very murky."
Peru claims that numerous, documented requests to return the pieces - or even negotiate the issue - starting in 1917, were ignored by Yale. "They always wrote back with different excuses - first they said they needed more time to evaluate the pieces, then, in later years, said they were studying our requests for the return," says Ugarte. But, now, with the 100th anniversary of the city's rediscovery coming up, he says, Peru has had enough.
President Alejando Toledo, the country's first indigenous president, who is set to leave office in July 2006, has - together with his anthropologist wife - made the retrieval of the objects a priority.
"Peru has notified Yale University President Richard Levin that a lawsuit is being prepared if its rights to the archaeological pieces are not recognized," Peru's Foreign Minister Oscar Maurtua announced on Nov. 30. "We are convinced that we have sufficient proof to win in court." INC director Luis Guillermo Lumbreras has said the lawsuit would be filed in Connecticut state court in the next few months, but an international tribunal may make the final decision.
Yale, in its Dec. 8 letter, notes that it sent back some of the artifacts in 1922 (Peru concedes, but says these particular items were "worthless") and stresses that a long, costly lawsuit would be a mistake.
Instead, Barbara Shailor, Yale's deputy provost for the arts suggests a compromise: "We have proposed to collaborate with Peru in overseeing the return to Peru of a substantial number of the artifacts," writes Ms. Shailor. But just as Yale is willing to "...recognize the importance to the Peruvian people of ... the return of this patrimony," so, she would like Peru to "give honorable recognition to Yale for its stewardship of the collection for nearly a century, and in the scientific and scholarly contributions thereby made possible."
In 2003, Yale's Peabody Museum mounted a major exhibition of the artifacts that traveled the US, introducing the wonders of Machu Picchu to more than a million people - just as Bingham's books and articles about "The Lost City of the Incas" did close to a century ago.
Bingham had multiple theories about Machu Picchu: that it was a training ground for Inca priestesses; the last Inca stronghold abandoned as the Spanish invaded; or the city of origin of the Inca empire, which dominated South America from Colombia to Chile for about a century.
Experts now say Bingham got it wrong on all counts, and that Machu Picchu was a summer sanctuary of the Inca Emperor Pachacutec.
Yale points out that its efforts have helped make Machu Picchu South America's best-known archeological site, attracting half a million tourists a year.
The fight over the artifacts is compounded by the fact that each side claims the crates Bingham sent out contained something different. Peru says Yale has in its possession close to 5,000 pieces. And, while even Lumbreras has admitted the site had been ransacked many times over the centuries by the time Bingham got there - it is common to hear Peruvians talk about stolen "treasures."
"Who knows where other - better - pieces are?" says Mariana Mould de Pease, a historian of Peruvian heritage. "I want to know what Yale did between 1911 and 2003 when they mounted the exhibition? Where were all the pieces?"
Shailor says all this is "misleading."
"Yale has approximately 250 pieces of exhibitable quality," she writes. "Yale has no mummies, no gold objects, and only a small number of silver pieces."
Roger Atwood, author of "Stealing History," a book on antiquities looting in Peru, says it is clear Yale is "taking a cooperative attitude" and suggests Peru rely on "ethical persuasion" rather than the courts.
"The artifacts are ... the treasures of Peru's most famous pre-Colombian city," agrees Chris Heaney, a Yale graduate writing a book about the controversy. "On the other hand, Yale has taken care of these pieces for over 90 years.... They are not the 'bad guys' here. They are a well-meaning scientific organization, not looters."
Art ping list.
Let Sam Cree, Woofie or me know if you want on or off the ping list.
Gee, the libs at Yale don't want to practice what they preach. Who'd'a thunk it.
Whomever made the artifatcs or whomever they originally belonged to it was most certainly not "Peru" nor the people whining now.
They can't be gien back -- the original owners and makers of them are all dead, for whatever reason.
Yale will cave.
It's nonsense though. They'd either not exist at all anymore or till be unknown.
There's a questionable premise in this justification that is stuck in my craw.
I don't know if this story is relevant to your ping lists. (This may be too political, but just in case...)
I don't see how you find so many fascinating stories to post. I can't keep up with them all, but I love being on your ping list all the same.
Has Yale or any of its profs had a position on the Elgin Marbles? If so, I'd be curious to know what it is.
On the other hand recent studies (now being reported) reveal that European people received agriculture from immigrants who came in, settled down with local girls (and guys), and passed on both their knowledge and their genes.
Why these people who are obviously their descendants should have to give up family heirlooms to the newcomers now inhabiting Egypt and Greece is a very good question.
I agree, archaeology has often been a form of plunder. The Elgin Marbles should go back and so should much of the British Museums Egyptian collection.
I'm supposing that if President Bush gave away artifacts discovered in the United States, Yale would be having a cow.
The problem is that the original owners (the Greeks particularly) did not take care of their antiquities. If Lord Elgin had not taken those pieces, they would be dust now.
It's their heritage not Yale's. The Brits and the rest should be turning everything back to the Egyptians and Greeks. It's not finders keepers.
An interesting take on the subject. If it was not for people like the "Brits" or the archeologist from Yale, much of these "treasures" would not exist (or have been looted or remained "lost").
These cultures that claim ownership had no interest in these artifacts until after they were rediscovered, salvaged, and studied.
I would think these ancient sites could be views as ship wreck where if the ship is abandoned, whoever salvages the cargo owns the cargo.
It was not Egyptians that discovered the secrets to the hieroglyphics nor was it a Peruvian who discovered the history of the Incas.
These cultures ignored their own history until outsiders showed up and re-discovered it for them.
I was on the Acropolis a few years ago, funny the other artifacts there weren't dust.
... I also see no difference between looters,
and archeologists - except who funds the expedition
and who benefits financially.
(William Jefferson Clinton, Yale Law School graduate, 1973)
Leni
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