Zahi Hawass is continuing to campaign for the return of Egypt’s cultural treasures, with a clear cut strategy of why he is doing it & of which specific artefacts he is focusing his efforts on.

From:
Agence France Presse

Zahi Hawass, media-savvy guardian of Egypt’s past
By Christophe de Roquefeuil (AFP) – 15th February 20009

CAIRO — Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, at 62, still bubbles with excitement whenever he announces the latest discovery of a tomb or relic, his eyes lighting up under the brim of his trademark Indiana Jones-style hat.

Aside from his love of the media limelight, Hawass is locked in battle to assert Egypt’s sovereignty over its heritage, even if that means crossing swords with the world’s most prestigious museums.
Read the rest of this entry »

More details on the conference being organised in Egypt on the retrieval of looted antiquities.

From:
Agence France Presse

Egypt to host conference on the return of antiquities
(AFP) – 2 hours ago

CAIRO — Egypt will host a conference in April for countries demanding the return of their antiquities, stolen but on display in museums round the world, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said Wednesday. The conference will “discuss the question of returning stolen antiquities,” the council said in a statement. It gave no dates for the three-day conference.

Thirty countries, including Greece, Mexico, Peru, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and China, will participate in the Cairo gathering, said Egypt’s antiquities director Zahi Hawass, who has made the return of looted Egyptian artefacts the hallmark of his tenure.
Read the rest of this entry »

More coverage of the return by the Louvre of Egyptian artefacts.

From:
Press TV

Louvre returns Egypt’s ancient artworks
Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:34:26 GMT

The Louvre Museum has returned Egypt’s ancient wall paintings after the country severed ties with the French art hub in October.

Egypt retrieved the fragments after President Hosni Mubarak checked one of them during a visit with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, Artdaily reported.
Read the rest of this entry »

Following the earlier decision by the Louvre to return various fresco fragments, the actual return of these objects has now taken place.

From:
Agence France Presse

France returns stolen Louvre relics to Egypt
(AFP) – 22 hours ago

PARIS — France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy handed his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak a stolen ancient relic on Monday, ending a row between France and Egypt over artefacts taken from a Luxor tomb.

“Thank you very much,” Mubarak said as Sarkozy presented the painted wall fragment to him, following a formal lunch at the Elysee presidential palace.
Read the rest of this entry »

Zahi Hawass’s comments about the Rosetta Stone have provoked a lot of discussion in the UK – but as yet, no signs of any actual progress towards resolving the issue.

From:
The Independent

The Big Question: What is the Rosetta Stone, and should Britain return it to Egypt?
By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter
Wednesday, 9 December 2009

Why are we asking this now?

Dr Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and the high priest of all matters archaeological in the Land of the Pharaohs, arrived in London yesterday to further his demand for the return of the Rosetta Stone from the display rooms of the British Museum, where it has been on show since 1802. Dr Hawass has embarked on an international campaign to secure the return of a host of renowned artefacts which he claims were plundered by colonial oppressors and assorted brigands from Egypt’s ancient tombs and palaces before ending up in some of the world’s most famous museums.
Read the rest of this entry »

Following the high profile successes of Australian Aboriginal groups in securing the repatriation of human remains from Britain’s museums, New Zealand’s Maori’s are also achieving similar results.

From:
Agence France Presse

Museum returns Maori bones to N.Zealand
(AFP) – Nov 16, 2009

LONDON — A British museum handed back a set of Maori skeletal remains to indigenous leaders from New Zealand on Monday, 80 years after they were discovered in storage there, officials said.

The remains are thought to have been traded but then forgotten, and to be from Ahuahu or Great Mercury Island, off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
Read the rest of this entry »

Further coverage of the decision by China to try & catalogue the artefacts in museum around the world that were looted from the Summer Palace. The British Museum says that they don’t see this as a threat – but then they said in the past that the New Acropolis Museum adds nothing to the argument for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

From:
The Times

October 20, 2009
China in worldwide treasure hunt for artefacts looted from Yuan Ming Yuan palace

China is to send a team of artefact hunters to nearly 50 countries to track down thousands of treasures looted by foreign armies 150 years ago.

The experts will scour museums, libraries and private collections in Britain, the US, France, Japan and elsewhere to photograph and catalogue what was taken from the Yuan Ming Yuan, popularly known as the Old Summer Palace, after British and French armies sacked it in 1860 then picked through what remained in 1900.
Read the rest of this entry »

China hopes to send experts to foreign museums to build a more complete catalogue of the Chinese artefacts looted from Beijing’s Summer Palace in foreign museums (many of which are not on public display).

From:
Agence France Presse

China experts to search abroad for looted relics
(AFP) – 2 days ago

BEIJING — China will send a team of experts to museums around the world in an effort to record more than a million cultural relics it says were looted from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace, state press reported Monday.

Museums, libraries and private collections in the United States, Britain, France and Japan will be the primary targets, the China Daily reported, citing the director of Beijing’s Yuanmingyuan, or Old Summer Palace.
Read the rest of this entry »

Following their success in persuading the Louvre to return disputed artefacts, Egypt has once again set its sights on other artefacts of questionable provenance held in museums around the world.

From:
Agence France Presse

Egypt battling for more relics after Louvre success
By Ines Bel Aiba (AFP) – 2 days ago

CAIRO — Many relics from ancient Egypt remain in foreign museums and Cairo is struggling to persuade other countries to send them back, like France which agreed to return a set of 3,000-year-old wall painting fragments.

“It is the Egyptian people’s right to see works of art from their country’s civilisation,” said Abdel Halim Nureddin, a former head of Egypt’s antiquities authority.
Read the rest of this entry »

In the past, Egypt’s Zahi Hawass has asked for the return of disputed artefacts in the Louvre. Now, as a means to escalate the issue, he is trhreatening to withdraw any co-operation between Egypt & the Louvre until the issue is resolved.

From:
Agence France Presse

Egypt breaks ties with France’s Louvre Museum
By Christophe de Roquefeuil (AFP)
7th October 2009

CAIRO — Egypt announced on Wednesday that it has cut all cooperation with France’s Louvre Museum until it secures the return of “stolen” Pharaonic antiquities in the latest row involving the exhibits of a major European institution.

“We made the decision to end any cooperation with the Louvre until they return” the works, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told AFP.
Read the rest of this entry »

More coverage of the reversal of the original decision to censor depictions of the iconoclasm from a short fim about the history of the Athenian Acropolis which is on display in the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Agence France-Presse

Agence France-Presse – 8/4/2009 4:02 PM GMT
Acropolis Museum backs down in Parthenon video row

Greece’s new Acropolis Museum on Tuesday said it will undo controversial editing of a video showing the Parthenon temple vandalised by early Christians in a row that has sparked complaints of Church-backed censorship.

The video will be restored after its maker, renowned French-Greek filmaker Costa-Gavras, said he meant to attach no blame to Christian priests for the destruction, museum director Dimitris Pantermalis said.
Read the rest of this entry »

More coverage of the removal of depictions of the iconoclasm from a film on display in the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Agence France Presse

Acropolis Museum accused of muzzling filmmaker
(AFP) – 20 hours ago

ATHENS — A rights group has accused Greece’s new Acropolis Museum of censoring a video that shows early Christians vandalising antiquities after complaints attributed to the country’s Orthodox Church.

The Greek section of the Helsinki Monitor (GHM) on human rights on Monday said it had filed an injunction application against the museum, demanding that the video by prominent French filmmaker Costa-Gavras be restored in full.
Read the rest of this entry »