Despite significant coverage of looting of antiquities, the same antiquities often re-surface a few years later at auctions, or appear in museums. In some cases, this is because some parties choose not to ask too many questions when buying artefacts, but in many other cases, it is merely because the scale of the international art market is so huge, that it is almost impossible to track & catalogue every item accurately & thereby trace their true provenance.

From:
Washington Post

Reputable auction houses try to get all (arti)facts before selling antiquities
By Brian Vastag
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 1, 2011; 8:10 PM

The first Indiana Jones movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” offers many a scene to make archaeologists wince, but none more so than a quiet moment early on when the intrepid Professor Jones sells plundered artifacts to Marcus Brody, director of the fictional National Museum in Washington.

“The museum will buy them as usual,” Brody says with a wink. “No questions asked.”
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Zahi Hawass has written about the problems for Egypt’s antiquities during the recent upheavals in the country.

From:
DrHawass.com

The Situation in Egyptian Antiquities Today

On Friday, January 28, 2011, when the protest marches began in Cairo, I heard that a curfew had been issued that started at 6.00pm on Friday evening until 7.00am on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, on that day the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, was not well guarded. About a thousand people began to jump over the wall on the eastern side of the museum into the courtyard. On the western side of the museum, we recently finished something I was very proud of, a beautiful gift shop, restaurant and cafeteria. The people entered the gift shop and stole all the jewellery and escaped; they thought the shop was the museum, thank God! However, ten people entered the museum when they found the fire exit stairs located at the back of it.

As every one knows, the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, is naturally lit and due to the architectural style of it, there are glass windows on its roof. The criminals broke the glass windows and used ropes to get inside, there is a distance of four metres from the ceiling to the ground of the museum. The ten people broke in when I was at home and, although I desperately wanted to go to the museum, I could not leave my house due to the curfew. In the morning, as soon as I woke up, I went directly there. When I arrived, I found out that, the night before, three tourist police officers had stayed there overnight because they were not able to get out before the curfew was put in place. These officers, and many young Egyptians who were also there, helped to stop more people from entering the museum. Thankfully, at 10.00pm on Friday night, the army arrived at the museum and gave additional security assistance.
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A lot has been made in some news sources, of the amount of damage (or potential damage, because at the time that things like this are reported, it is often hard to make a full assessment) done to the collections of museums in Egypt during the recent protests there. Many sources then jump straight on to the next conclusion that this means that it is right to keep disputed Egyptian artefacts in the big museums of the West, despite the fact that even a year ago these riots could not be anticipated & that no one appointed certain big museums as official custodians of global culture.

Further to this, there is of course the fact that artefacts aren’t necessarily safe in any country.

One promising thing though, is that while some rioters were vandalising the museums, many more Egyptian citizens were making every effort they could to try & protect these places from damage.

From:
Wall Street Journal

Egypt’s Antiquities Fall Victim to the Mob
A definitive answer to the question: Should the Elgin Marbles be returned to Greece?
February 1st 2011

When Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, came to work at the Egyptian Museum on Saturday, he found that looters had broken in and beheaded two mummies—possibly Tutankhamun’s grandparents—and looted the ticket booth. Reports indicate that middle-class Egyptians, the tourism police and later the military secured the museum. But now it appears that many other museum’s and storehouses have been looted, along with archaeological sites. A vast, impoverished underclass seems less taken with either the nationalist narrative of Egyptian greatness that stretches back to the pharaohs, or the intrinsic value of antiquities for all humanity, and more intrigued by the possibility of gold and other loot. For his part, Mr. Hawass has now been appointed state minister for antiquities by President Hosni Mubarak.

These events make Mr. Hawass’s quest to return all Egyptian objects to Egypt misguided or at least poorly timed. Last week he again demanded the return of the bust of Nefertiti from Berlin. The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum has long been on Mr. Hawass’s wish list, along with the Zodiac Ceiling in the Louvre and statues in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and museums in Hildesheim, Germany, and Turin, Italy. And a few weeks back he complained bitterly that the obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle, a gift to the U.S. from the Khedive of Egypt that has graced Central Park since 1881, was in poor condition and might have to be reclaimed. He has made similar demands for the repatriation of Egyptian artifacts around the world, whether purchased, donated or stolen. But can Egypt even look after what it has? This question is now out in the open.
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More coverage of Germany’s refusal to return the Bust of Nefertiti to Egypt.

From:
Press TV

Germany not to return Nefertiti bust
Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:37PM

Germany has once again refused to return the bust of Queen Nefertiti, an ancient Egyptian sculpture housed at the Neues Museum in the city of Berlin.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) had sent a request to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, asking for the 3,400-year-old piece which attracts more than one million visitors every year.
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In a move that will surprise few people, Germany has once again rebuffed requests for the return of the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum.

From:
Yahoo News

Germany Denies Egypt’s Request for the Return of 3,300-Year Old Bust of Queen Nefertiti
Vanessa Evans Vanessa Evans – Tue Jan 25, 5:26 pm ET

The latest round in the debate between Egypt and Germany over the rightful ownership of one of Egypt’s most prized antiquities hit another snag on Monday when Germany again refused to turn a bust of Nefertiti over into Egyptian hands. Currently housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum, where it has been for decades, the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti is at the top of a list of artifacts that Egypt would like returned to their home soil.

Germany, for its part, is maintaining it acquired the bust through legal channels and it belongs to them. It further maintains the artifact is too fragile to travel, so even a temporary loan back to Egypt would not be possible.
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Once again, Egypt has reiterated its request for the return of the Nefertiti bust, currently housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum.

From:
Bloomberg

Egypt Demands Return of Nefertiti Bust From Germany
By Mahmoud Kassem – Jan 24, 2011 11:40 AM GMT

Egypt has officially asked that Germany hand over a 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum as part of the North African country’s efforts to return disputed artifacts.

Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, sent a letter requesting the return of the statue to Herman Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, the Egyptian Culture Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.
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More coverage of the statements made by Egypt about reclaiming Cleopatra’s Needle, an ancient obelisk, from New York’s Central Park, due to allegations of negligence. Note that, although the obelisk is part of a pair (with the other in London), the claim only relates to the one in New York at present.

From:
Artinfo

Egypt Threatens to Reclaim Cleopatra’s Needle From Central Park, Citing Negligence
Published: January 10, 2011

CAIRO— Zahi Hawass, the ubiquitous, media-savvy Egyptian antiquities director whose blockbuster King Tut exhibition just finished its United States tour over the weekend, cannot be accused of resting on his laurels. After having convinced the Metropolitan Museum of Art to return 19 small artifacts that he said were taken illegally from Egypt, he’s now turning his sights to bigger game in the museum’s backyard — Cleopatra’s Needle, the 3,500-year-old obelisk that resides next to the Met in Central Park, and which Hawass now accuses the Parks Department of failing to properly maintain.

Despite its moniker, the obelisk was not built under the famous Egyptian queen’s reign, but by her predecessor of a century and a half, Thutmose III, around 1450 B.C. Its provenance is not in question — the Egyptian Khedive (or viceroy) first suggested giving it as a gift to New York City in 1869 in honor of the completion of the Suez Canal and the resulting trade relationship between the U.S. and Egypt. The gift became official in 1877, after William Vanderbilt promised the tens of thousands of dollars necessary for transporting the obelisk, and it was erected near the newly-established museum in 1881. But Hawass claims that the city has allowed the monument’s hieroglyphics to deteriorate, LiveScience reported.
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In a story that has parallels with the Axum Obelisk in Rome, Egypt has threatened to demand the return of Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park, New York, Because it feels that the obelisk is not being properly looked after there.

From:
Yahoo News

Egypt threatens to take back New York obelisk
By Kristina Cooke – Sun Jan 9, 5:21 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Egyptian government official charged with protecting his country’s ancient monuments is threatening to take back an iconic obelisk in Central Park unless New York City takes steps to restore it.

The stone obelisk “has been severely weathered over the past century” with no effort made to conserve it, Zahi Hawass, secretary general for Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, wrote in a letter this week to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
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Zahi Hawass looks back as the campaign he has spearheaded for the return of looted Egyptian antiquities in museums around the world.

From:
Asharq Alawsat

Egypt’s Stolen Artifacts Must Be Returned!
10/12/2010
By Dr. Zahi Hawass

When the campaign to restore Egypt’s stolen antiquities first began, the world – particularly the archeological community – was surprised by the force of our call and insistence that our stolen artifacts and heritage be returned to us. The initial rallying call for our antiquities to be returned to their homeland was made from the heart of the British Museum, after I was invited to give a lecture there.

After the lecture, the museum curator invited British intellectuals and several politicians to a dinner that was held in one of the museums halls, where I noticed that a number of Egyptian antiquities were on display. Such antiquities included the magnificent statue of King Ramses II, the greatest Egyptian pharaoh of them all, as well as a statue of King Tuthmosis III, who has been nicknamed the “Napoleon of Ancient Egypt” as he is credited with expanding the ancient Egyptian empire as far north as Anatolia and as far south as the fourth Cataract of the Nile [Dar al-Manasir]. After dinner, the museum curator delivered a pleasant speech welcoming me to the British Museum; the curator also paid tribute to British-Egyptian relations in the field of archeology and praised the cooperation that exists between the British Museum and Egypt.
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Following the Met’s agreement to return nineteen artefacts to Egypt, Egypt hopes that the return of other more significant works may follow.

From:
NPR

Egypt Called; It Wants Its Rosetta Stone Back
by Neda Ulaby
November 14, 2010

This past week, the Metropolitan Museum in New York announced it will return 19 small objects from King Tut’s tomb to Egypt. Now the Egyptians are asking the British to return the Rosetta Stone.

LIANE HANSEN, host: Last week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced it will return 19 small objects from King Tut’s tomb to Egypt. The museum’s research proved they were stolen.

As NPR’s Neda Ulaby reports, this is part of an increased sensitivity in the museum world towards such objects. Egyptian archeologists hope more significant works may follow.
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The recent agreement by the Metropolitan Museum in New York to return nineteen disputed artefacts to Egypt signifies yet another step in the turning tide against the retention of such pieces by museums.

From:
Periscope Post

Are art museums guilty of stealing?
12 November 2010

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced this week that it is sending 19 items, including a bracelet and a small bronze statue of a dog, excavated from the tomb of of the boy king Tutankhamun, back to Egypt. Art repatriation, it seems, is beginning to pick up steam.

This is not the first time that the Met have returned artifacts to their places of origin. As the Metropolis blog at the Wall Street Journal pointed out, last year the museum returned a granite fragment inscribed with the name of an Egyptian ruler to Cairo, and in 2001, the Met sent back a 19th-Dynasty relief, showing the head of an Egyptian goddess. Other items, such as Euphronios Krater (an ancient Greek vase), the Hellenistic silver collection (an ancient set of 16 silver pieces smuggled out of Sicily), as well as works of art that were looted by the Nazis, have been sent back home.
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Further coverage of the Met’s decision to return various artefacts to Egypt. Although the artefacts are all relatively small, it is still an important decision & acknowledges the growing realisation by museums that holding onto disputed artefacts is becoming increasing untenable.

From:
CNN

Met returning 19 King Tut objects to Egypt
By the CNN Wire Staff
November 10, 2010 8:24 p.m. EST

New York (CNN) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is returning to Egypt 19 small objects that were entombed for centuries with ancient Egypt’s “boy king,” officials announced Wednesday.

A small bronze dog and a sphinx bracelet-element were attributed with certainty to Tutankhamun’s splendid burial chamber, which was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 in the Valley of Kings, the museum and the Supreme Council of Antiques of Egypt said.
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