Although Yale announced last year that it would give back to the government of Peru the 4,000 artifacts - including mummies, ceramics and bones - it had found at Machu Picchu, according to the latter, there should, in fact, be around 40,000 items.

“Counting is complicated,” Richard Burger, the Yale Archaeology professor responsible for an initial inventory of the pieces, said by telephone from Peru, as reported by Yale Daily News. “Do you count lots or do you count every piece? There may be tens of thousands of objects if you count each finger bone in a skeleton.”

The artifacts were discovered by Yale explorer Hiram Bingham III between the years 1911 and 1915. According to an agreement made with the government of Peru, Hiram Bingham III was only supposed to keep the artifacts for a limited period of time, the deal actually being a loan.

For the past decades, a continuous dispute over rightful ownership has been going on. One of Yale’s suggestions was to split the collection; obviously enough, it wasn’t accepted. Last month, several officials from the National Institute of Culture in Peru made a trip to Yale and as result of this visit, a report was released by Peru’s minister of health, Hernan Garrido-Lecca.

Several countries, including Egypt, Peru and Greece, are currently engaged in negotiations in the attempt to bring back valuable artifacts that have been, in time, relocated by explorers. As anyone can see, this is not an easy process.