Yale refuses to return Maccu Picchu artifacts to Peru

My friend Emilie forwarded me this opinion piece from the NY Times. In it, the former first lady of Peru argues that ~350 artifacts recovered from Maccu Picchu in the early 20th century and that are currently housed at Yale should be returned to Peru. Basically, the artifacts were only supposed to be on a 1.5 year loan, but here we are over a half-century later and Yale doesn't want to return them. It's interesting the level of negotiations involved, too... US Senators, Peruvian ambassadors, and even the National Geographic Society (which sides with Peru... yay!).

This sort of thing is a common occurrence... colonialism saw the extraction from the developing world of not just material wealth but cultural wealth as well. And usually the rich countries who now house those artifacts don't want to return them. I believe there's a long-standing row between Egypt and England over this very topic.

As for as I'm concerned, why not scan the originals, make replicas for your exhibits, and then send the originals back home? That way you don't disrupt your current exhibits, and the indigenous folks get some of the artifacts of their heritage back. That seems fair to me. Hell, why not create an active research partnership between (in this case) Yale and a university in Peru (Cuzco or Lima), and conduct some joint studies? That way everyone has access to the artifacts, and Yale can ensure that they're properly cared for, and local archaeologists can get facetime with bigwigs at an Ivy League school. Seems like a fair solution to me.