Yale Daily News

Updated: Saturday, November 21, 2009 7:35 p.m.

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Peruvian minister joins Inca talks

Staff Reporter
Published Tuesday, October 7, 2008

More than a year has passed since Yale and Peru signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the rightful ownership of ancient Inca artifacts housed at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History.

For much of the time since last September’s memorandum, the parties were locked in a stalemate over the objects excavated nearly a century ago. But now, Peru has sent a higher-level official to the negotiations, and some on Yale’s side say there is new hope that a final agreement can be reached, although both Yale and the Peruvian government acknowledge that the parties may well end up in...

#1 By (Anonymous) 8:01a.m. on October 7, 2008

What does 'museum quality' mean? Is that for the display side of the museum or is it for the research side?

#2 By @ #1 2:29p.m. on October 7, 2008

It's for the display side. Very few items in the collection are museum quality because so many of the artifacts are in fragments.

#3 By (Anonymous) 3:43p.m. on October 7, 2008

It means all right for display...but that kind of elides the fact that the 'research quality' artifacts include the bones of about 100 graves. Which, you could argue, should have a greater importance for the Peruvians than the pots they already have shelves of in their museum.

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