France and Egypt find common ground on “stolen” artifacts
November 4, 2009
Louvre to return disputed fragments from 3200-year-old tomb
After Egypt went so far as to break off ties with France in a battle over the legal ownership of Egyptian relics, the relationship was later restored after France agreed to return the pieces that have been part of the Louvre’s collection for almost 20 years. The breach was significant, as the Louvre’s refusal to return fragments of frescoes from a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor placed the Paris museum’s future excavations in Egypt. In addition, Christiane Ziegler, the former curator of the Louvre’s Egyptology department, was barred from giving a scheduled lecture in Egypt.she is the person who oversaw the museum’s acquisition of the fragments.
Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s vocal chief archaeologist, has been running an aggressive crusade against leading museums around the world thought to be holding contraband artifacts that are part of Egypt’s cultural and archeological heritage and rightly belong there. Thousands of antiquities were spirited out of Egypt during its colonial period and later, by archaeologists, adventurers and thieves. Hawass’ bureau posited that antiquity grave-robbers chipped the disputed fresco fragments from the walls of the tomb near the Valley of the Kings in the 1980s. Based on these assertions, the office cancelled Ms. Ziegler’s trip to Egypt and also suspended the Louvre’s excavation in the massive necropolis of Saqqara, near Cairo.
In a story worthy of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, the artifacts were allegedly stolen from Egypt, smuggled out of the country and sold to the Louvre. The French government had said the Louvre acted in good faith when it purchased the treasures from an unnamed source in 2000 and 2003. For years after Egypt cried foul, the dispute raged on, with France insisting that the relics had been legally and legitimately acquired. However, in November 2008, archaeologists rediscovered a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor that the relics appear to have come from. The question of whether they had been legally removed from Egypt was re-opened. After reviewing the archaeologists’ findings, an independent commission made up of specialists from France’s museum world and other experts that oversees museums in France voted unanimously to return them. Mr. Hawass is not finished with the Louvre yet. He has presented a list of other items he wants back, including the painted ceiling of the Dendera temple showing the Zodiac.
The Louvre is not the only museum that Hawass has a beef with. The Rosetta Stone, a basalt slab with an inscription that was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics, and is a worldwide symbol of the key to all language, is in the British Museum in London, and a bust of Queen Nefertiti, also in dispute, is held by a museum in Germany. Hawass’ track record is impressive; so far he has recovered 5,000 artifacts for Egypt since becoming antiquities czar in 2002, including hair stolen from the tomb of King Ramses II. He wields a powerful incentive for museums like the Louvre to come clean and return artifacts from Egypt’s past, by withholding access in the future, such as permission for digs and cultural and scholarly exchange.
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