Huatulco Travel

Yale filed court papers Friday arguing that the Peru’s lawsuit, filed in December 2008, should be dismissed because of a three-year statute of limitations under Connecticut law. Peru argues that under its own law, its claims are not subject to a statute of limitations.

The artifacts were gathered by a Yale scholar, Hiram Bingham III, between 1911 and 1915. Yale says it returned dozens of boxes of artifacts in 1921 and that Peru knew it would retain other artifacts.

"In the twenty-first century, long after everyone with any personal memory of the expeditions had died, Peru claimed that Yale had not returned enough of the artifacts," Yale’s attorneys wrote.

But Peru says objects of "immense cultural and historical importance" were never returned and says the trove included human remains, objects in bronze and gold, utensils, ceramics and art objects. Yale describes the artifacts as "primarily fragments of ceramic, metal and bone."

In 2007, the two sides had agreed to give Peru legal title to the pieces, which were to travel in a joint exhibit and then return to a museum and research center in the ancient Incan capital of Cuzco. Yale would have funded the exhibit and partially funded the museum.

The university said it had promised to return all "museum quality objects" along with a "significant portion of the research materials." But Peru backed out of the deal because of a dispute over how many artifacts were to be returned.

The Peru claim cites century-old government documents granting Bingham permission to remove the artifacts, but retaining ownership and reserving the right to request their return. It argues that Yale knowingly violated U.N. cultural property agreements by refusing to return them.

Bingham is commonly credited with rediscovering Machu Picchu centuries after the Incan empire abandoned it during the Spanish conquest. The spectacular ruins, perched on an Andean mountaintop, are Peru’s top tourist destination.

In recent years, versions suggesting that other foreign and local explorers beat Bingham to the site have gained currency among Peruvian historians.