Following the Louvre’s decision to return some fragments of frescos to Egypt, one wonders whether the relatively long standing requests to the British Museum for the return of the Rosetta Stone will be properly considered at last.

From:
Modern Ghana

HAWASS REQUESTS ROSETTA STONE: WILL BRITISH MUSEUM MAKE A BOLD CONCILIATORY GESTURE?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Fri, 16 Oct 2009

In an article entitled Egypt asks British Museum for the Rosetta Stone after Louvre victory, the British Daily Telegraph reports that soon after the Louvre has agreed to return the stolen frescoes, Zahi Hawass, the dynamic Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities has asked the British Museum for a loan of the Rosetta Stone. The Telegraph also reports that: “Mr. Hawass acknowledged that seeking the return of the Rosetta Stone was a different proposition from the painted fragments in the Louvre.” The paper adds that: “A spokesman said the British Museum “enjoys good relations” with Egypt and promised to consider Mr Hawass’s request.”(1)

A reader who has not followed discussions on restitution and the efforts by Hawass to secure the return of looted Egyptian artefacts might be forgiven for thinking that emboldened by his recent success with the Louvre, Hawass is now turning attention to the British Museum and making demands. The truth however, is that the request for the return of the Rosetta Stone has been made long ago by the Egyptians. There are at least reports on this demand as far back as 2003.
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Egypt’s ultimatum to the Louvre over disputed artefact claims achieved a rapid response. Can other parties making restitution claims against museums learn from this?

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 10.10.09 21:32
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
France to return ancient Egyptian frescos – Lessons from Zahi Hawass

LOUVRE GIVES IN TO DEMAND OF ZAHI HAWAS FOR THE RETURN OF STOLEN ARTEFACTS. IS THIS THE END OF A STORY OR THE BEGINNING?

According to press reports, France has agreed to return the the five ancient Egyptian frescos that Zahi Hawass claimed had been stolen from Egypt even though the French asserted they had bought them in “good faith”.
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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.
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In a surprisingly rapid response to Egypt’s threats to withdraw cooperation with the Louvre, the French Museum has now agreed to the return of five fresco fragments, admitting that there are now serious doubts over their provenance.

From:
Bloomberg

France to Give Back to Egypt Five Artifacts Bought by Louvre
By Farah Nayeri

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) — France said it is returning to Egypt five fresco fragments acquired by the Louvre Museum, saying there were “serious doubts” about their provenance, and responding to Egyptian demands for their return.

The 35-member commission overseeing France’s national museum collections met today, and unanimously agreed that the fresco fragments from the wall of a prince’s tomb must be given back, the culture ministry said in an e-mailed release. Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand has decided to return them.
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More coverage of Zahi Hawass’s threats to cut ties between Egypt & the Louvre, as arguments over disputed artefacts in the French museum escalate. Hawass also alleges that the Louvre knew the artefacts were obtained illegally at the time that they were acquired.

From:
Independent Online (Zaire)

Artefacts drive wedge between Egypt, Louvre
October 08 2009 at 09:18AM
By Paul Schemm

Egypt’s antiquities czar took his campaign to recover the nation’s lost treasures to a new level on Wednesday by cutting ties with one of the world’s premier museums, the Louvre, over disputed artefacts.

The Paris museum’s refusal to return painted wall fragments of a 3 200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor could jeopardise its future excavations in Egypt.
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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.
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Whilst the British Museum insists that the New Acropolis Museum changes nothing in the battle for the battle for the return of the Elgin Marbles, most commentators tend to disagree. It is not the only museum built to potentially returned artefacts either, as the Egyptians are also building a new Grand Museum of Egypt with the hope that this will act as a catalyst for restitution claims.

From:
Foreign Policy (USA)

Is Greece Losing its Elgin Marbles?
The battle between antiquities-loving and antiquities-producing countries continues.
BY SUSAN EMERLING | AUGUST 21, 2009

The culture war between antiquities-importing countries and those whose soils harbor archaeological treasures has flared up again. This time, the battle isn’t over recently looted artifacts returned by a chastened American museum to their country of origin. Instead, it is over the June opening of Athens’ New Acropolis Museum (NAM), which, in addition to housing an eye-boggling cache of art and artifacts found on the Acropolis, was built with the wishful premise of someday housing what the British refer to as the “Elgin Marbles.” These are the late fifth-century sculptures that were removed from the Parthenon in the early 19th-century by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, and acquired by the British Museum in 1816.

Although there are certainly entrenched political and legal obstacles to the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece — chief among them, the British Museum’s claim of rightful ownership — the elegant, state-of-the-art concrete and glass-walled NAM, designed by Swiss-born New York-based architect Bernard Tschumi has put to bed long-standing concerns over Greece’s ability to safeguard and exhibit the stones, should they ever return to its shores. Despite its persistent refusal to consider the restitution, even the British Museum seems to have tacitly acknowledged the suitability of the NAM by offering the marginally sincere three-month loan of the marbles in exchange for a renunciation of Greece’s ownership claims. (The Greeks ridiculed and rejected the offer.) But amid all this posturing, does the construction of the NAM signal the beginning of a shift in the repatriation debate, which might affect museums around the world that are caught in similar conflicts over contested objects? Although not all archaeological source countries have the resources to build such an unimpeachable museum, the issue of restitution for works of art might increasingly be decided less on whether these source countries can legally reclaim their own antiquities — but whether, ethically, they should.
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The British Museum continues to hold onto the Parthenon Marbles, despite polls show that most people in Britain are in favour of their return. Whether or not Elgin had some form of permission at the time to remove the pieces, times have now changed & most would argue that it is ethically & morally right that the artefacts are returned.

From:
New West Network

Should Nefertiti and the Elgin Marbles Go Home?
By Nick Gier, New West Unfiltered 7-28-09

Once again the Greek government has demanded that the Parthenon Marbles, better known in imperialist circles as the Elgin Marbles, be returned from the British Museum to the Greek people. The stunning new Acropolis Museum has just opened, and there is a gallery where a plaster copy of half the famous frieze waits to be replaced with the original.

Noting that the Greeks had previously been amenable to a generous loan policy, the British journal The Economist states that “the Greek government risks driving museums everywhere into clinging to their possessions for fear of losing them. If the aim is for the greatest number of people to see the greatest number of treasures, a better way must be found.”
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In a case that only tenuously relates to restitution claims, a software manufacturer is involved in legal action with Google over the fact that other companies may be taking out adverts that are set to appear when the name of their business is entered in a search. What makes this semi-relevant though is that the name of the company is Rosetta Stone – so one would have thought that at present any actual ownership claimed on the name might belong to the British Museum. Of course though this is not the end of the cycle either – Egypt disputes the British Museum’s ownership of the stone & as such would have the rights to the name of the stone.

The question that this raises, is what gives others the right to re-appropriate a term & call it their own, to the extent of trying to prevent others from using it – a situation not dis-similar from the British Museum’s current claims that artefacts such as the Rosetta Stone are now integral to their own collections & therefore can not be returned to their true owners.

From:
Telecom TV

Google v. Rosetta Stone: the case of the stolen words
Posted By TelecomTV One , 17 July 2009

What’s in a word? Often a lot of money for a start. And where there’s money there’s lawyers. And where there’s lawyers there is, sometimes, a measure of clarity. By Ian Scales.

At least the issues get a good outing. The Google v. Rosetta Stone case is currently raging in the US courts and it’s about when and to what extent a word could or should be controlled by those who claim it as a trademark.
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Whilst the tide is clearly turning in favour of restitution of ancient artefacts to their original owners, there are still many people going against the flow. Unsurprisingly many of those opposing the current trend also happen to be museum curators.

From:
Calgary Herald

A museum director fights back
The best place for ‘looted’ artifacts? Right where they are
By Robert Fulford, National PostApril 18, 2009

Ideology, politics and bone-headed provincialism come together comfortably when they make war on the world’s great museums.

The issue is cultural property. Countries believing that colonialists stole their spiritual heritage are uniting in a send-back-our-stuff campaign. They envision populations and art objects moving in opposite directions: While citizens try to emigrate to Europe and North America for better lives, art objects should travel the other way, delivering national identity and self-esteem through ancient artifacts.
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Various artefacts that are alleged to have been looted were returned to Egypt by a small museum in the UK. It is unclear from the article quite how they got there, how they were acquired without sufficient due diligence & why they are now being returned – it sets a good example to other museums though that actions should be taken to restore looted artefacts to their rightful owners.

From:
ArtInfo

British Museum Returns 454 Artifacts to Egypt
Published: May 1, 2009

CAIRO—Britain’s Myers Museum has returned 454 ancient artifacts to Egypt, according to Bloomberg.

The artifacts, which include beaded necklaces and bronze coins, had been removed from Egypt between 1972 and 1988, after antiquities trafficking was banned in 1970, said Hussein Al-Afuni, a head of Egypt’s Red Sea antiquities department, in a statement.
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Egypt is going to issue a formal request for the return of a Pharoanic coffin that it believes was illegally removed from the country 125 years ago.

From:
Gulfnews (UAE)

Egypt seeks return of pharaoh’s coffin from US
Bloomberg
Published: March 23, 2009, 23:04

Cairo: Egypt will make an official request to the United States within a couple of days for the return of a Pharoanic coffin that was smuggled out of the country 125 years ago, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said.

The North African nation is asking for the return of the wooden coffin, which is ornately painted with scenes and religious writing intended to help its occupant reach the afterlife, dating back 3,000 years to the 21st dynasty of the Pharaohs, the council’s chief Zahi Hawass said in a statement.
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