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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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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New laws against trafficking in looted antiquities in Egypt are expected to be endorsed soon by the country’s parliament.

Form:
Al Ahram

Hands off, and we mean it
Issue No. 938

Parliament is shortly expected to endorse a draft law outlining severer penalties for antiquities trafficking and copyright of Egypt’s heritage, Nevine El-Aref reports

Protecting Egypt’s cultural heritage from treasure hunters, retrieving looted and illegally-smuggled antiquities and generating the revenue necessary to restore and conserve this country’s heritage are key priorities in a new antiquities law soon to be reviewed by the People’s Assembly.
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Another review of Sharon Waxman’s new book about the looted ancient treasures from around the world that fill many of the great museums of the West.

From:
The Star (Toronto)

That which was stolen shall be returned
The complex story of the fate of ancient artifacts in foreign museums is packed with smugglers, intrigue and Imperialism
Feb 08, 2009 04:30 AM
Hans Werner

Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
by Sharon Waxman
Times Books, 414 pages, $33

If you’ve ever stood there awestruck in front of Nefertiti in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin, the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum (London), or the Denderah Zodiac ceiling in the Louvre (Paris), you may get a sinking feeling to imagine them gone, vanished or replaced with replicas. That goal of some powerful people is the subject of Loot: The Battle of the Stolen Treasures of the Art World by Sharon Waxman, a former culture correspondent for The Washington Post and The New York Times. Also the author of Rebels on the Backlot, about the new Hollywood, Waxman presents a lucid and intelligent investigative report into the dilemma of what the great museums of the world are to do in the face of demands to return signature artifacts to the countries of origin.
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The ever pugnacious Zahi Hawass has issued a formal request to Sweden asking for the return of 212 artefacts.

From:
International Herald Tribune

Egypt asks Sweden to return artifacts
The Associated Press
Published: January 19, 2009

CAIRO, Egypt: Egypt has formally asked Sweden for the return of 212 artifacts taken out of the country by a Swedish collector in mid 1920s, Egypt’s chief archaeologist said Monday.

Zahi Hawass, the head of the Council of Antiquities, said in a statement that the council’s lawyer has been in touch with Ostergotlands County Museum in Sweden.
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This article is about Archaeology in Egypt in 2008 – which due to the events of the past year, means that there is a lot of focus on restitution cases. (The relevant section is towards the end of the article)

From:
Daily Star (Egypt)

2008: the year of archaeological restorations
By Ahmed Maged
First Published: December 26, 2008

CAIRO: While stunning archaeological revelations are expected to make headlines by the beginning of 2009, archaeology-enthusiasts were let down by unfulfilled promises of exciting excavations made in 2008.

What marked the year 2008, however, were the landmark restorations that highlighted archaeological events, especially in the field of Islamic architecture.
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Another review of Sharon Waxman’s new book. Another new book by Nina Burleigh looks at one of the side effects of the endemic trade in de-contextualised unprovenanced artefacts.

From:
Washington Post

Fool’s Gold
How stolen ancient artifacts have turned up in famous museums around the world.
Reviewed by Roger Atwood
Sunday, November 16, 2008; Page BW02

LOOT – The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
By Sharon Waxman | Times. 414 pp. $30

UNHOLY BUSINESS – A True Tale of Faith, Greed, and Forgery in the Holy Land
By Nina Burleigh | Smithsonian/Collins. 271 pp. $27.50

Early this year, officials at the Metropolitan Museum of Art trussed up one of the prizes of its collection, an ancient vase known as the Euphronios krater, and sent it back to Italy. Italian authorities had presented evidence that the piece had been looted from a tomb near Rome less than a year before the Met paid $1 million for it in 1972. Faced with the prospect of a lawsuit and a ban on receiving any future loans from Italian museums, the Met, writes former Washington Post and New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman, “stalled, stonewalled, and would not be swayed — until it was forced to do so.”
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Sharon Waxman’s book on the looted artefacts filling some of the world’s greatest museums is getting quite a bit of media attention. Its position is almost completely the opposite of that taken by James Cuno in his book published earlier this year. In many ways it could be said that Cuno represents the view of the museums whilst Waxman ‘s view is more closely aligned to that of the general public. In countries such as Britain though, a large amount of the funding for the largest museums comes from tax payers via the government – so surely these institutions should be doing more to reflect what the public expects of them?

From:
New York Times

Art of the Steal
By HUGH EAKIN
Published: November 7, 2008

Loot is an ugly word. Derived from ­Hindi and Sanskrit, it emerged in British India, where it no doubt proved useful in describing some of the more sordid transactions of empire. In the 20th century, it was applied to Jewish art collections systematically plundered by Hitler and, later, to electronics pilfered from shop windows during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Most recently — and perhaps most provocatively — it has been wielded against well-to-do American museums whose pristine specimens of ancient civilizations have with shocking frequency turned out to be contraband.
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Another review of Sharon Waxman’s new book about the looting that fills the museums of the West.

From:
Dallas Morning News

‘Loot’ by Sharon Waxman: Author delves into the plundering of antiquities
12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, November 2, 2008
By ALEXANDRA WITZE / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
books@dallasnews.com Alexandra Witze is chief of correspondents for America for the science journal Nature.

Classical scholar Marion True, a curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, was a leading light in the museum world, until her passion for antiquities landed her in court in Italy.

In a bizarre series of events starting in 2005, Italian prosecutors pursued her for allegedly covering up earlier transactions in which the Getty had bought looted artifacts for its collection. Yet Ms. True had long fought against the murky underworld of smuggled antiquities, and many now feel she became a scapegoat in an ongoing battle between august Western institutions and the often-poorer countries from which the world’s great artifacts were taken.
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A new book by Sharon Waxman looks at how many museums of the West have relied heavily on looted artefacts to build up their collections, even in comparatively recent times.

From:
Truthdig

Book Review
Karl E. Meyer on Sharon Waxman’s ‘Loot’
Posted on Oct 24, 2008
By Karl E. Meyer

I devoured “Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World” with particular zest, having published in 1973 an earlier account of the same cultural underworld, “The Plundered Past.” A seasoned reporter with an Oxford degree in Middle East studies, Sharon Waxman has updated and surpassed my explorations, in part because the outcry over the illicit traffic has reached fever pitch, provoking voluble, angry and indiscreet utterances from curators, collectors, dealers and a new breed of watchdogs, viz.:

“You end up thinking we’re all a bunch of looters, thieves, exploiters, that we’re some kind of criminals … but who would be interested in Greek sculpture if it were all in Greece? These pieces are great because they’re in the Louvre.” So protests Aggy Leroule, the Louvre’s press attaché, and so complain directors, trustees and publicists at the many great temples of art and archaeology. Yet there are also dissidents, an unlikely example being Thomas Hoving, once the acquisition-obsessed director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and now a fallen Lucifer who recalls, almost with relish, his prevarications past.
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