Peru Sues Yale University Over Artifacts

Yale University is being sued by the South American nation of Peru in U.S. federal court to retrieve Inca artifacts from the Machu Picchu ruins almost 100 years ago.

In the suit, Peru is demanding the return of more than 40,000 relics taken by Yale lecturer Hiram Bingham III between 1911 and 1915. Hiram, who later became a senator from Connecticut, is believed to have rediscovered the city of Machu Picchu after it was abandoned by the Incas.

For the past seven years, Peru has been attempted to retrieve the artifacts but the government backed out of an agreement signed last year over arguments about the number of pieces to be returned.

In the lawsuit, Peru is seeking a declaration of its ownership of the relics and is looking for any profits Yale made from exhibiting the pieces, saying the university has been fraudulently holding them for years.

"Peru seeks the immediate return of all such property as well as damages that it has suffered on account of Yale's persistent breach of its obligations and profit at the expense of the people of Peru," the lawsuit says.

National Geographic, which calls Machu Picchu "arguably the greatest archaeological site in the Americas," says Hiram found the city while searching for the lost Inca capital of Vilcabamba in 1911.