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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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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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 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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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.
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Despite vigorous campaigning, by Egypt’s Zahi Hawass, indications are that Berlin’s Neues Museum has no plans to return the Nefertiti Bust that is currently in their museum.

From:
Examiner

Queen Nefertiti will stay in Berlin
December 24, 9:05 AM
Archaeology – News – Examiner – Will Hunt

Egypt has been on a crusade of late, demanding the return of apparently stolen ancient artifacts from Europe’s museums. Last week, the Louvre buckled under the pressure of Zahi Hawass, the media-friendly (ok, media-mongering) secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, and returned five 3,200-year-old fragments of a tomb painting from Luxor.
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Egypt is continuing their efforts to secure the return of the Nefertiti bust from Germany with a planned formal request.

From:
Independent Online (Zaire)

Cairo ready to demand the return of Nefertiti
December 21 2009 at 02:59AM
By Marwa Awad

Cairo – Egypt will formally ask Germany to return a bust of Queen Nefertiti after a Berlin museum official presented papers showing the 3 400-year-old treasure was taken unethically, Egypt’s antiquities chief said on Sunday.

Zahi Hawass said in a statement that documents presented by the head of Berlin’s Neues Museum confirmed that Ludwig Borchardt, who found the bust, tried to pass it off as a less significant find to secure it for Berlin.
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German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt discovered the Nefertiti bust in 1912. The bust was taken from Egypt to Germany, but wheter or not this removal had official permission is something that is disputed by the Egyptian authorities.

From:
Modern Ghana

Egypt pushes for return of antiquities to origin countries
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article

JASON KOUTSOUKIS HERALD CORRESPONDENT
December 7, 2009
CAIRO: Egypt will host an international conference next March for countries seeking the return of ancient indigenous treasures being kept in foreign museums.

The secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said the conference would be a world first.
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Egypt is carrying on building pressure on Germany to try & secure the return of the Nefertiti Bust.

From:
Bikya Masr

Egypt, Germany to duke it out over Nefertiti bust
Joseph Mayton
6 December 2009 in Culture, Egypt, Egyptology, Europe, News

CAIRO: It has become the neverending story of Egypt’s Zahi Hawass to get Germany to return the famous Nefertiti bust. He has made threat upon threat against Berlin, demanding they give back what is rightfully Egypt’s. The threats have been met with laughter and skirting. Germany has no intention of returning their prized possession, taken from Egypt’s sands in the early part of last century.

Either way the diplomacy falls, the two sides will hold talks this month in order to see what will be done about the statue. Hawass believes the 3,400-year-old treasure was illegally taken from Egypt and should be returned.
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Zahi Hawass is going to have a meeting twith the director of Berlin’s Neues Museum to discuss the future of the Nefertiti Bust. Whilst no wanting to pre-empt whatever is going to be discussed, it seems to me to be a positive step, in that any meeting is better then the requests being completely ignored with no opportunity for further discussion.

From:
Reuters

Egypt to hold talks over Nefertiti bust
Thu Dec 3, 2009 6:19am GMT
By Marwa Awad

CAIRO, Dec 2 (Reuters Life!) – Egypt, in a diplomatic tug-of-war with Germany over the bust of Queen Nefertiti, will hold talks this month to try to recover the 3,400-year-old pharaonic treasure Egypt says was smuggled out of the country.

Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told Reuters he will meet the director of the Egyptian Papyrus Collection at Berlin’s Neues Museum, where the bust is on display, on December 20 to resolve the row over Nefertiti, the mother-in-law of boy king Tutankhamun.
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Kwame Opoku looks at how the bust of Nefertiti, on display in Berlin’s Neues Museum, is in many ways isolated from its original context – showing that context is not just important for understanding large in-situ pieces such as the Parthenon Sculptures.

From:
Modern Ghana

NEFERTITI, IDIA, TIYE AND OTHERS REVISITED: NEFERTITI IN SPLENDID ISOLATION?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Mon, 16 Nov 2009

“The history of the bust of Nefertiti shows very clearly how hollow it can sound when Germans and other Europeans refer to legal principles in relation to the “Third World.”
Gert von Paczensky and Herbert Ganslymayr (1)

The intensive and extensive publicity surrounding the re-opening of the Neues Museum in Berlin and the renewed demands by Zahi Hawass made it inevitable that all those interested in restitution of looted/stolen cultural objects would pay attention to the recent celebration of the renovated museum on the Museums Island in Berlin.(2)
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