MACHU PICCHU AND PERU - Yale University

YALE FACULTY
Richard Burger is the Charles J. MacCurdy Professor of Anthropology and a curator at Yale’s
Peabody Museum. He was the Director of the Peabody for eight years, from 1995 to 2002. He
graduated cum laude from Yale in 1972 and earned a PhD in anthropology from the University
of California at Berkeley. Having focused his research on the social and economic origins of
Andean civilization, Professor Burger has conducted fieldwork throughout Peru, serving as director
of several major excavation projects. Together with his wife, Lucy Salazar, Professor Burger
helped write and edit an award-winning book titled Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the
Incas (Yale Press, 2008). He has also written many articles and books on South American prehistory,
including Chavín and the Origins of Andean Civilization. He was part of the Yale delegation
which negotiated the repatriation to Peru of artifacts removed by Hiram Bingham during
his expedition to Machu Picchu a century ago.
Lucy C. Salazar, a Peruvian archaeologist, is a research associate in Yale’s department of anthropology
and has collaborated with Richard Burger on several scholarly publications. An authority
on Inca archaeology and Peruvian prehistory, she completed her undergraduate work at the
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos before coming to Yale for graduate study. She has
over two decades of experience in archeological fieldwork and museum research.
UNSAAC-YALE INTERNATIONAL
CENTER FOR THE STUDY
OF MACHU PICCHU
AND INCA CULTURE
In October 2011, Yale officials, including Professor Richard Burger, joined the Cultural Minister
of Peru and the rector of the University of Cuzco to celebrate the opening of the UNSAAC-Yale
Center. The center, housed in Casa Concha, a restored Inca palace, emerged from a historic
agreement between Yale and the Peruvian government regarding the fate of the Machu Picchu
artifacts excavated by Hiram Bingham between 1911 and 1916. After decades of negotiation,
the jointly-run center will now house these relics and allow for continued research by Yale, the
University of Cuzco and visiting scholars. In addition to laboratory and conservation facilities,
a public museum focuses on the investigations made by Bingham’s Yale-Peruvian Scientific
Expeditions of 1911 and 1912. For his contributions to the agreement, Yale President Richard
C. Levin was honored with the Order “The Sun of Peru” in the Grade of “Great Cross,” the
nation’s highest civilian award, for his distinguished service to Peru.