VAT problem delays return of tragic climber’s artifacts

British officials are trying to clear up a VAT problem that has stalled the return of artifacts recovered near the body of English climber George Mallory, who died on Mount Everest more than 75 years ago.

In the meantime, goggles, matches, frayed rope, monogrammed handkerchiefs and other items are stranded in a storage room at the Washington State History Museum in the US.

American mountain guide Eric Simonson and five other climbers found the artifacts and Mallory’s body on Everest in May 1999.

The items were displayed in the Washington museum a year ago and were to be shipped to England last spring.

But the Royal Geographic Society is trying to make sure the items will not be subject to Britain’s 17.5% VAT. As soon as the society receives an exemption, officials will ask for their return, society spokesman Elliot Robertson said.

Many historians consider the artifacts priceless clues to whether Mallory and Andrew Irvine reached the top of the world’s highest peak before falling to their deaths.

If they did, they’d have been the first climbers to reach the 29,028-foot summit nearly three decades before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made what is considered the first successful assault in 1953.

A major goal of Simonson’s expedition was to find a Kodak camera that Mallory carried. If pictures could be developed from the film inside it, they might prove Mallory and Irvine reached the top.

The camera was not found, but other artifacts were: an oxygen bottle, a wristwatch, a broken altimeter, gloves, a leather strap, a pencil nub, a boot, scissors, ointment, a knife, scraps of clothing and a tin of meat.

Simonson plans to make a return trip to Everest this spring to search for Irvine’s body and other clues.

Mallory had already been to Everest in 1921 and 1922. One of a group of British explorers who had lost the race to the North and South poles, Mallory was itching to surmount ‘‘the third pole’’ Everest.

He and Irvine made it at least as high as 27,850 feet, where Simonson saw the discarded oxygen bottle. And they almost certainly climbed above a point called the Second Step, at 28,300 feet.

Since their final expedition, about 1,000 people have successfully climbed Mount Everest and more than 150 have died trying.