Egypt’s conference on looted antiquities opened with the inimitable Zahi Hawass calling for unity & cooperation between the countries that are trying to retrieve artefacts.

From:
Zawya (UAE)

Egypt forum on looted antiquities opens with call for unity
By Christophe de Roquefeuil

CAIRO, Apr 07, 2010 (AFP) – Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass on Wednesday opened an international conference on recovering ancient artefacts from abroad, saying countries must unite to recover their stolen heritage.

“We need to cooperate, we need a unification between our countries,” Hawass told antiquities officials, deputy culture ministers and museum directors from 21 countries at the two-day Cairo meeting.
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Egypt is holding a conference on stolen & looted antiquities, bringing together representatives from many of the nations that are requesting returns. Hopefully, many other countries can learn from some of Egypt’s recent successes in this field.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 01:23 GMT, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 02:23 UK
Egypt hosts meeting on recovery of ‘stolen treasures’

Global culture officials are to meet to discuss how to recover ancient treasures which they say have been stolen and displayed overseas.

Sixteen countries will be represented at the two-day conference in Cairo.
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Jonathan Downs, author of Discovery at Rosetta, now has a website / blog, which gives more information about the stone & the claims for its return.

Make sure you view the posts section of the site, which includes articles on whether Britain really has legal ownership of what is possibly one of the most significant (in terms of our understanding of ancient Egypt) artefacts in their collection.

Egypt has recently had a lot of success at securing the return of artefacts from foreign institutions & collectors. Can other countries manage to copy their example though with their own requests?

From:
Modern Ghana

EGYPTIAN SEASON OF ARTEFACTS RETURNS: HOPEFUL SIGN TO BE FOLLOWED BY OTHERS?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Sun, 14 Mar 2010

”There is a moral imperative for museums around the world to return certain artefacts to the countries they came from, and we are going to identify how we can help each other to increase the pressure on the keepers of those artefacts.”
Zahi Hawass. (1)

Egyptians seem to be having tremendous success in the recovery of their artefacts taken away during the heyday of imperialism and colonialism or stolen since 1970 when States adopted the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970). (2)
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Korea like other countries has been observing the approach taken by countries such as Italy & Egypt in retrieving their cultural property, whereby they have switched from a diplomatic approach to more hard-line measures with a certain amount of success.

From:
Joong Ang Daily

More than treasure lies beneath a historical trove of Korean art
[NEWS IN FOCUS:First in a two-part series]

Determining who has the rights – legal and natural – to the relics is a complicated question.
March 01, 2010

For much of its tumultuous history, Korea was invaded by stronger nations. Time after time, dating back to the fifth century, invaders ravaged the helpless country and none went home without spoils: They carted off cultural treasures ranging from texts from royal libraries to paintings and sculptures.
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An ancient coffin smuggled into the US many years ago is now due to be returned to Egypt.

From:
Press TV

US to return smuggled Egyptian coffin
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:59:34 GMT

Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni says his country will reclaim a Pharaonic coffin smuggled into the US more than 125 years ago.

Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass will receive the ornately painted coffin next month, Hosni said in a statement.
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Among the vast numbers of disputed artefacts in museums & galleries, some have a high profile, whilst others are barely known. Time Magazine has attempted to draw up a list of what they feel are some of the most currently significant cases.

This article was published a few months ago, but I only recently came across it – explaining the fact that the information on the Louvre’s Egyptian Frescos is already out of date.

From:
Time

Top 10 Plundered Artifacts
History is big business. Plundered art and antiquities trade to the tune of at least $3 billion a year, much to the chagrin of nations struggling to reclaim their lost artifacts. In honor of a recent spat between the Egyptian government and the Louvre museum in Paris over the fate of fresco fragments, TIME examines 10 plundered antiquities and the conflicts they’ve created.

The Louvre’s Egyptian Frescos

A set of ancient fresco fragments is at the center of a nasty feud between Paris’s Louvre Museum and the Egyptian government. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s antiquities department, claims the Louvre bought the fragments last year despite knowing they were taken from a tomb in Egypt’s storied Valley of the Kings in the 1980s, a prime spot for grave-robbers. Egypt, which has made reclaiming ancient art taken from its country a top priority, said they would sever cooperation with the Louvre unless the fragments were returned. A museum representative claimed on Oct. 7 that the Louvre was unaware the fragments were stolen, and said the museum would consider sending the fresco pieces back to Egypt.
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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.
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Zahi Hawass is still trying to retrieve the bust of Nefertiti from Berlin. The way Egypt promotes its archaeology as its own has moved on a lot in recent years, but there is still far more that needs to be achieved, to retrieve many of the key iconic artefacts from abroad.

From:
Bloomberg

Egypt Relics Chief Pulls in Revenue as He Fights for Nefertiti
By Daniel Williams
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg)

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s antiquities department, promotes his country’s cultural treasures with a showman’s skills and an entrepreneur’s instincts.

His Indiana Jones-style hat and vest and television- documentary appearances put an Egyptian face on Egyptology after two centuries of foreign domination, he says. His goals include recovering icons such as a 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti from abroad and restoring national pride in Egypt’s relics — even in someone else’s museum.
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Dr. Zahi Hawass is confident that one day the Rosetta Stone will return to Egypt. It is not a question of if, but when.

From:
Asharq Alawsat

The Rosetta Stone Will Return
26/01/2010
By Dr. Zahi Hawass

Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat- With all its history and glory, Egypt owes [a great deal to] the black basalt slab called the Rosetta Stone that unravelled the mysteries of Pharoanic scripture engraved on temples, graves, obelisks and the pyramids. Before the stone was discovered, these writings were merely signs and symbols.

The story of the puzzling stone began when part of the French [military] expedition to Egypt arrived in the Mediterranean city of Rosetta, where the water of the River Nile meets the Mediterranean Sea. The soldiers admired the city and its fresh air, and were fascinated by its residents, their handicrafts, their small fishing boats and the beautiful houses. Engineers then made changes to the Citadel of Qaitbay in Rosetta before they surrounded it with red brick walls to act as a fort and protect the city’s entrance against a potential English invasion.
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A new exhibit at the Tate Modern is based on the artist’s experiences with a fragment broken off one of the Pyramids in Egypt that he later returned. What is more interesting though is the comments from the British Museum on the issues raised by this – despite the fact that many of the artefacts in their collection were originally acquired in similar circumstances by untrained excavators without proper permits.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Tate show reveals artist’s pyramid theft
British artist Andy Holden is to reveal how he stole a piece of the Egypt pyramids in a new exhibition at the Tate Britain in London.
Roya Nikkhah, Arts Correspondent
Published: 9:00AM GMT 10 Jan 2010

The artist’s guilty secret began with a seemingly innocent trip to Egypt.

Accompanying his father, who was there on business, Andy, then 12, was taken to the Great Pyramid of Giza: the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still surviving – relatively intact – and the oldest and largest of the pyramids at the Giza Necropolis.

“When we arrived at the pyramids, unthinkingly I broke off a lump of stone from the side of the Great Pyramid in Giza,” said Mr Holden. “I got home and put it on a shelf in my room alongside a collection of other souvenirs I had as a kid, but when my parents found out, they were furious and it ended up becoming this terrible guilt object.
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A response to the Daily Telegraph’s article on the location of the Rosetta Stone.

From:
Modern Ghana

WHERE THE ROSETTA STONE BELONGS MAY NOT BE SET IN STONE BUT IS STATED IN DOCUMENTS:
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.

“The time has come when the British Museum should recognise the change in relative status between Britain and the rest of the world. We are no longer the imperial masters and increasingly need to build constructive working relationships as between equals.”
Peter Groome (1)

It is indeed really remarkable that so many Western writers seem to have great difficulty in keeping to logic and facts when it comes to writing about restitution of cultural objects which have been looted, stolen or illegitimately acquired from non-Western peoples. A recent example of this type of writing is an article by Ben Macintyre, entitled “Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone”, published in the British daily, The Times, of 10 December 2009. (2) The article may appear at first sight to contain convincing arguments but a cursory examination of the statements by the author shows that it is not well argued; it is mainly intended to support the stubborn refusal of the British Museum to return the Egyptian Rosetta Stone as the Egyptians have been demanding. We comment briefly on some of the statements in the article to examine some of the weaknesses of this line of thought.
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