LIMA, PERU — Authorities here are hailing a deal reached with Yale University to return some of the thousands of artifacts carted away by Hiram Bingham III, the swashbuckling historian and explorer who stumbled upon the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu almost a century ago.
But doubts have surfaced about the scope of the accord and about Yale's right to retain certain parts of the collection for "ongoing research," as a university statement said.
"It's good that the pieces are to be sent back, but it's absurd that this doesn't cover all of them," said Luis Lumbreras, former director of Peru's National Institute of Culture. "If Yale wants to continue studying the pieces, they can come to Peru."
When the decision became public here, media reports indicated that Peru would get most or all of its artifacts back. But Yale since has reiterated that a substantial part of the collection will remain on the university's New Haven, Conn., campus.
"This is good news in principle, but there is a serious problem: We now have two versions," said Mariana Mould de Peace, a historian who has written about Machu Picchu. "The government is not speaking with clarity."
The decision to return the objects comes as research institutions worldwide grapple with ever more assertive demands for the return of cultural artifacts to their places of origin. Last month, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles agreed under pressure to return 40 prized artifacts allegedly looted from Italy.
The Peruvian government had threatened to take Yale to court to regain control of the material. The Ivy League institution was keen to avoid a potentially embarrassing legal brawl with a Third World nation seeking to recover what some call the country's "plundered" patrimony.
The administration of Peruvian President Alan Garcia has called the accord a breakthrough that settles the long-term dispute about Machu Picchu artifacts at Yale.
Officials at Yale stressed the "spirit of collaboration" embodied in the agreement, in which Yale will acknowledge Peru's title to all of the excavated objects.
Yale President Richard C. Levin said most of the 370 or so "intact, whole objects" of museum quality would be returned to Peru and form the core of a museum the Peruvian government has agreed to construct in Cuzco, the former Inca capital that is the jumping-off point to visit Machu Picchu.
