Ninety-six years after they were removed by the American discoverer of Machu Picchu, thousands of Inca artefacts are to be returned to Peru.

Text: Stephen Light

Yale University has finally agreed to return thousands of Inca relics which were excavated at Machu Picchu between 1911 and 1915 by the American historian and adventurer Hiram Bingham. Peru insisted that the artefacts be returned in 2006, although in the city of Cusco and among many Peruvian academics the fact that the items were never returned by the university which backed Bingham’s work at Machu Picchu has long been a heated issue.

Hiram Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu on the rainy morning of July 24th 1911 has always been a controversial matter in Peru, with many Peruvian historians pointing out that the Yale professor was not the first to reach the ruins of the Inca city perched high above the Urubamba River in thick forest. Nevertheless, most experts agree that a great debt is owed to Bingham for bringing Machu Picchu to the attention of the scientific world and thereby laying the foundations of Peru’s booming tourism industry. In an effort to avoid controversy, in Peru the Hawaii-born academic’s achievement is always referred to as “the scientific discovery of Machu Picchu”.

Under the new agreement, Yale and the Peruvian government will co-sponsor a travelling exhibition of the collection. More than four thousand pieces, including mummies, ceramics, silver statuettes, jewellery, musical instruments and human bones, were taken to the American university during three excavations Bingham made between 1912 and 1915.

Yale has also agreed to act as an adviser during the establishment of a new museum in the city of Cusco which will be designed to house the collection.