[MSN] On Friday, Yale agreed to return to Peru a collection of artifacts that Hiram Bingham III took in 1912. Under the terms of a preliminary accord, Peru would gain title to more than 350 museum-quality objects. The agreement provides for a jointly sponsored international exhibit, proceeds from which will help build a museum for the artifacts in Cuzco, near the site in Peru where the antiquities were excavated. Yale also committed to funding a program of scholarly exchanges for three years.

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Yale, Peru Agree On Artifacts

October 1, 2007

Times change - slowly perhaps, but they change.

Large nations have not always respected the cultural heritage of smaller countries that were defenseless to protect their treasures from theft. That's changing.

It's encouraging to find that Yale University has aligned itself with the new trend. On Friday, Yale agreed to return to Peru a collection of artifacts that Hiram Bingham III took in 1912.

Under the terms of a preliminary accord, Peru would gain title to more than 350 museum-quality ceramics, jewelry, and metal and stone objects, as well as several thousand bones and bone fragments.

The agreement provides for a jointly sponsored international exhibit, proceeds from which will help build a museum for the artifacts in Cuzco, near the site in Peru where the antiquities were excavated. Yale also committed to funding a program of scholarly exchanges for three years.

Mr. Bingham, a Yale archeologist, dug up the pieces from Machu Picchu, the ancient city of the Incas, promising the Peruvian government to return them after studying them. He never did. However, artifacts taken in subsequent expeditions in 1914-15 were returned.

In 2001, Alejandro Toledo, Peru's first president of Andean descent, demanded return of the items taken in 1912. They were housed at the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven.

Yale at first resisted efforts to retrieve the artifacts, including the threat of a lawsuit. On Friday, however, Yale officials hailed the agreement as a "new conceptual framework for collaboration" that would be a model for resolving cultural property disputes.

The trend toward returning ownership of national treasures took a leap forward last year when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City surrendered 21 ancient relics to the government of Italy.

Shortly thereafter, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles returned artifacts that were illegally seized from Greece decades earlier.

As one of this country's greatest universities, Yale had a special obligation to resolve its disagreement with Peru. The settlement should set an example for others to follow.

http://www.courant.com/