The Vatican has signed an agreement with Peru in terms of which it will send back three mummies held in Rome since 1925.
The agreement was signed by Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, and César Landa Arroyo, Peruvian foreign minister.
The mummies were discovered at an altitude of 9 800 metres in the Andes. They are believed to be from the Inca civilisation.
They are part of a collection of artefacts held by Vatican Museums and assembled from around the world in 1925 – during which year Catholic missionary activity was celebrated. Collecting mummies for museum displays has a long history, but has become increasingly controversial in recent decades.
In 2010, Vatican Museums launched a project to identify and repatriate human remains. Mummies and a human head from Ecuador were returned several years ago. The motivation was that human remains should not be viewed as art.
The Vatican is engaging with indigenous communities around the world about the artefacts it holds, sometimes with a view to repatriation, although also in order to gain a deeper understanding of their significance and how properly to display them.
[Image: Staselnik, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29499170]