Finders Not Keepers: Yale Returns Artifacts To Peru

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Between 1912 and 1915, Yale explorer Hiram Bingham III excavated thousands of artefacts from Machu Picchu — an Inca site perched high in the Andes Mountains. They were taken back to Yale University in Connecticut for study under a decree of the Peruvian government, but for 100 years they remained in Yale (in the Peabody Museum in New Haven) where they were at the centre of a long-running international cultural property custody battle. Many of those objects have now been returned to Peru, the university is giving back thousands of ceramics, jewellery and human bones to the International Center for the Study of Machu Picchu and Inca Culture.

Yale anthropology professor Richard Burger points out that "The Machu Picchu situation and dispute was really fundamentally different from other repatriation issues", unlike many art and artifact disputes, this one was not about stolen goods. Sharon Flescher, executive director of the International Foundation for Art Research, explained that "They were never allegedly taken in violation of patrimony laws, or clandestinely dug up [...] This was really much more of a contractual dispute". Peruvian officials contended that the materials were loaned to Yale for research.

After World War I, the university returned some of the artifacts, but argued that the school could keep the rest under the laws of the day. Over time, Peru's demands grew louder. Machu Picchu is an iconic place for the Peruvian people, and the idea of bones and artifacts from Peru being held in the U.S. took on a powerful symbolism. In 2008, Peru's government filed a lawsuit against Yale. Negotiations intensified, and a letter from Yale alumni urging their alma mater to return the artifacts helped move the process out of the courts. Peruvian historian Mariana Mould de Pease was happy to avoid the expensive legal route. She says Yale alumni played a key role in "getting this matter where it has to be — in the academic world." In November 2010, Peruvians held a demonstration in Lima demanding that Yale return the artifacts taken by Bingham.

The dispute was finally resolved through two separate agreements. The first, between Yale and the Peruvian government, established that the university would return all of the objects by the end of 2012. The second established a partnership between Yale and the San Antonio Abad University in Cuzco to share stewardship of the collection. The schools will also collaborate on academic research. This agreement shifts the emphasis from the issue of the ownership of the objects to stewardship and preservation and research and exhibition.

As a result of the repatriation of the excavated material,

alongside the hundreds of thousands of tourists who pass through Cuzco each year to visit the terraced stone ruins of Machu Picchu, the citizens of Peru will be able to see the historic relics which many have never seen before.

Diane Orson, 'Finders Not Keepers: Yale Returns Artifacts To Peru', NPR 18th Dec. 2011.

Photo: The ruins after excavation.

Peru to sue Swedish city for theft of ancient textiles

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Peruvian President Alan Garcia said that his country intends to sue the Swedish city of Gothenburg on charges of being accomplices in the theft of ancient pre-Columbian textiles more than 2,000 years old. The colourful Paracas culture textiles are currently on exhibit in the city-owned Museum of World Culture. The Paracas culture flourished on Peru's southern coast from around 100 BC to 200 AD, but little was known about their people until archaeological excavations starting in the 1920s.

According to the Gothenburg museum website, "large quantities of Paracas textiles were smuggled out of Peru and illegally exported to museums and private collections all over the world around 1930. About a hundred of them were smuggled to Sweden and donated to the Ethnographic Department of Göteborg Museum." The town possesses 89 of the textiles, displayed since 2008, according to the website. In May 2010, Sweden returned 33 pre-Columbian textile fragments to Peru, the Latin American country most affected by theft of archaeological artifacts.

"We have the right to pursue legal action at the international level, through Interpol, and to seek the arrest of those who are accomplices in the pillaging of a civilization," Garcia said.

AFP: 'Peru to sue Swedish city for theft of ancient textiles', 05 July 2011

Photo: Hummingbird tunic with fringes from The Paracas Collection [Credit: Paracas Foundation/Göteborg]

Peruvian Conference on Repatriation

The Second International Conference to Recover Stolen Antiquities is being held this year in the Peruvian capital city of Lima, and attendees come from over twenty countries. The first such conference was convened in Cairo in April last year with the presence of thirty countries. Therre does not seem to be much material about it available in the Internet at the time of writing.

Egypt's Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass went there on a four-day visit to share Egyptian experiences with the conference. Egypt’s expertise has,"over the past two years, helped Peru recover twelve archaeological masks from a university, who had borrowed these mask from Peru for many years and refused to return them to their place of origin".

Before leaving to Peru Hawass told Ahram Online that he would concentrate his speech on Egypt’s experience in returning their illegally smuggled antiquities, the development of legislation for the protection of monuments and the preservation of state’s rights to return home their stolen artefacts - even the distinguished objects from international museums. A list of unique artefacts that countries want recovered was prepared in Cairo and named the “Wish List.” Hawass added that the conference in Peru will solidify the position of all of the countries seeking restitution. Here, they will start the required communications and actions to demand the restitution of unique artefacts on display in a number of museums in Europe and the US.

The first session of the conference will be allocated for Egypt, where Hawass will[...] not only highlight Egypt’s interest in developing a legislative structure for the protection of monuments, but will demonstrate Egypt’s use of bilateral agreements as a means to show solidarity and reduce the smuggling of national monuments internationally.

Nevine El-Aref, 'Egypt Minister of Antiquities Hawas to assert rights of countries with ancient civilisations in Peru conference', Saturday 2 Jul 2011