Yale may face artifacts lawsuit

The government of Peru said it will sue Yale University over hundreds of artifacts taken from the ancient city of Machu Picchu nearly a century ago.

Eduardo Ferrero, Peru’s ambassador in Washington, said Yale archeologist Hiram Bingham took the artifacts from the Incan city in the Andes between 1911 and 1916 with the understanding that they were on temporary loan and “would be returned.”

Yale, which has displayed the antiquities at its Peabody Museum in New Haven, Conn., offered to set up parallel collections at Yale and at a new museum to be built in Peru, which the government rejected.

Yale contends the artifacts were legally excavated and exported “in line with the practices of the time,” and that it has clear title to the materials, which include pottery fragments and bones, spokesman Thomas Conroy said.