Yale returns Machu Picchu artifacts
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Peru has received a first shipment of the Incan artifacts taken from the mountain citadel of Machu Picchu a century ago that Yale University returned after a lawsuit and personal lobbying of the U.S. president.
The 366 pieces — ceramics, textiles and bones — are among some 4,000 adventurer Hiram Bingham took beginning in 1911 from what has become Peru's leading tourist attraction. At the time, the removal was called a loan.
The artifacts arrived by commercial jet from New York and taken to the presidential palace in trucks decorated with huge images of the Incan ruins and escorted by police vehicles.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}President Alan Garcia credited all Peruvians achieving the artifacts' return. He had personally lobbied Barack Obama.