Peru Tries to Recover Gold From Yale's Ivory Tower

On his third trip in 1914-1915, Bingham was allowed to send 74 boxes of artifacts to Yale, and he had to return all of them. The Peruvians say records exist showing return of only half the boxes, citing Bingham's correspondence. Yale says all the boxes were returned, without citing any documentation.

Bingham, in memoirs published three decades later, says, "The archaeological material is mostly in the Yale University Museum, except that which was excavated in [the third expedition], which was all returned to the Peruvian Government."

Two weeks ago, Yale proposed returning many of the artifacts and helping Peru display them in a new museum. But Yale insisted on retaining a large number to ensure "research and scholarship of these objects will continue to exist and flourish into perpetuity," according to a March 1 statement.

Peru insisted that Yale recognize Peruvian ownership of all the artifacts, but suggested that some could remain on loan at the Peabody.

Over at the offices of National Geographic, four blocks from the Peruvian Embassy, Bingham is a revered figure. His second journey to Machu Picchu was the first expedition ever co-sponsored by National Geographic -- since then there have been 8,000 -- and Bingham's graphic account took up an entire issue of National Geographic Magazine. Portraits of the explorer are hung around the building.

National Geographic officials watched with increasing alarm as the Geographic's reputation got lumped in some circles with Yale's as clinging to Peruvian property -- when in fact the Geographic possessed none of the artifacts.

So Geographic officials tried to help broker a settlement, and also undertook an assessment of who really owned the Bingham artifacts.

In his office filled with photographs and reports from expeditions around the world, Terry Garcia summarizes the result. Garcia is vice president for mission programs -- the guy who oversees today's Hiram Binghams.

"There's no question on the face of it that the law called for these objects to be returned if the Peruvians asked for them," Garcia says. "It was an easy conclusion to come to."