2006.03.14: March 14, 2006: Headlines: Archeology: Figures: COS - Peru: Politics: Museums: Hartford Courant: Elaine Karp and her husband, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, have used their visit to Washington, D.C., to keep Peru's dispute with Yale in the public eye

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Peru: Friend of the Peace Corps: Alejandro Toledo : Special Report: President Alejandro Toledo: 2006.03.14: March 14, 2006: Headlines: Archeology: Figures: COS - Peru: Politics: Museums: Hartford Courant: Elaine Karp and her husband, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, have used their visit to Washington, D.C., to keep Peru's dispute with Yale in the public eye

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-186-164.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.186.164) on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 1:21 pm: Edit Post

Elaine Karp and her husband, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, have used their visit to Washington, D.C., to keep Peru's dispute with Yale in the public eye

Elaine Karp and her husband, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, have used their visit to Washington, D.C., to keep Peru's dispute with Yale in the public eye

Toledo discussed the artifacts with President Bush during a working lunch Friday. Though Toledo has flown home to Peru, his wife, a cultural anthropologist, is keeping the pressure on. Karp will meet first lady Laura Bush this morning to tour the National Museum of Women in the Arts - where artifacts currently on loan from Peru, as it so happens, are on display. President Alejandro Toledo of Peru was a language instructor for the Peace Corps in the 1960's. In 2002, Toledo invited the Peace Corps to return to Peru after a 27 year absence.

Elaine Karp and her husband, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, have used their visit to Washington, D.C., to keep Peru's dispute with Yale in the public eye

Peru Presses Yale On Relics
Nation's First Lady Keeps Issue In Public Eye
March 14, 2006
By KIM MARTINEAU, Courant Staff Writer

Machu Picchu is more than a symbol of the past. It has become a thriving tourist attraction that Peru wants to capitalize on to improve the life of its people.

That's hard to do when some of Machu Picchu's most important relics are sitting in a museum in another hemisphere. Artifacts that a Yale professor unearthed there more than 90 years ago are now on display at Yale's Peabody Museum. Peru's first lady has accused Yale of profiting from Peru's cultural heritage.

"This is ours," first lady Eliane Karp said Monday. "There is no more colonialism in the 21st century."

Karp and her husband, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, have used their visit to Washington, D.C., to keep Peru's dispute with Yale in the public eye. Toledo discussed the artifacts with President Bush during a working lunch Friday. Though Toledo has flown home to Peru, his wife, a cultural anthropologist, is keeping the pressure on. Karp will meet first lady Laura Bush this morning to tour the National Museum of Women in the Arts - where artifacts currently on loan from Peru, as it so happens, are on display.

Yale Professor Hiram Bingham stumbled on the stone ruins of Machu Picchu in 1911, while bushwhacking his way through the Andean mountains. Once a vacation retreat for Incan royalty, the site had languished for centuries.

On two later expeditions, Bingham dug up dozens of burial caves, finding ceramic vases, jewelry and other artifacts.

The government of Peru signed two "executive decrees" allowing Bingham to ship the artifacts home as long as they were returned.

Some of the material was returned but Yale has kept the rest, claiming title to more than 250 museum-quality pieces under an earlier Peruvian law. Yale has buttressed its position by federal case law involving Peruvian antiquities.

Since November, Peru has been threatening to sue. Yale has offered to collaborate and show the material in both countries. But Peru has refused any deal that does not acknowledge Peruvian title.

The National Geographic Society, which helped fund Bingham's expeditions, says the material clearly belongs to Peru and should be returned.

Yale, for its part, says its Machu Picchu exhibit is not the cash cow Peru may think. "Preserving, restoring and researching the collection over many decades at Yale has cost money," said Tom Conroy, a university spokesman. "The same has been true of creating and mounting the exhibition. Yale resources had to be secured and grants had to be found...It has not been a profitable exhibit - nor was that the design."

Short of inspecting the Peabody's balance sheet, many Peruvians may be unwilling to take Yale's word. The artifacts are also a symbol of national identity and a bridge to a time before the Spanish conquerors.

"Machu Picchu is the main symbol of Peru," Karp said. "It is something the Peruvian people relate to as the pride of their ancestors and their past."

Peru's modern history has been marred by civil war and allegations of corruption that have continued through Toledo's administration.

The son of a bricklayer, Toledo was born in the Andean mountains, raised in a coastal fishing village and came to the U.S. to study with the aid of two Peace Corps volunteers, according to a 2001 profile in Stanford Magazine.

Toledo put himself through college with the help of a soccer scholarship and later earned a doctorate from Stanford University. There he met his wife Karp, a Belgian-born Jew who was raised in France. She shared Toledo's interest in Indian culture and went on to learn Quechua, the official language of Tawantinsuyu, the Inca Empire, while doing field work near Machu Picchu, in Cuzco.

They divorced but remarried in 2000, a year before Toledo took office after becoming the first Peruvian of Amerindian descent to be elected president of the country. Toledo's term is up at the end of July and by law, he must step down. Karp has accused Yale of stalling.

"They've pushed it and pushed it, hoping the problem will go away with President Toledo," she said. "They should forget about it...It's very important for Yale to know the problem isn't going away."

The conflict has drawn the notice of Yale's most highly placed alumni, who include Bush.

Karp has been criticized at home for being an outspoken first lady. But on the issue of repatriating Peru's artifacts, she said, no one at home has complained. "Machu Picchu is just about the greatest thing Peru has," she said.





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Story Source: Hartford Courant

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Archeology; Figures; COS - Peru; Politics; Museums

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