Egypt prepares a new campaign for the return of the Rosetta Stone
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The Egyptian archaeological authorities also intend to recover the bust of Nefertiti, exhibited in Berlin, and the zodiac of Dendera, kept in the Louvre.
The British Museum already had a lot to do with restitution requests Parthenon marbles and bronzes from Benin. The London institution will have to scramble in the fall with a new campaign by the Egyptian authorities for the return of a jewel from its antique collections: the Rosetta Stone.
“The Rosetta Stone is the icon of Egyptian identity, Archaeologist Emeritus Zahi Hawass said in an interview with the Emirati daily in August. The National . The British Museum has no right to show this antiquity to the public.” The former Minister of Antiquities is preparing a petition for next month bringing together the signatures of a cohort of Egyptian and European specialists and intellectuals. Determined not to stop at the only engraved stele, the signatories will also ask for the restitution bust of Nefertiti and Dendera zodiacrespectively conserved at the Neues Museum in Berlin and at the Louvre.
Read alsoIn New York, the Met Museum cornered by seizures of antiquities
“These three objects are unique, their place should be in Egypt. We have gathered all the evidence that proves that these antiquities were stolen.continues Zahi Hawass, who had already requested in the past the return of one or the other of these masterpieces of Egyptian art. These complaints had increased in parallel at the construction site of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Postponed countless times, the opening of this new setting filled with national treasures is scheduled for November. Barring yet another unforeseen event.
In the mood of time
Great Museum or not, the Egyptologist has chosen his moment well. A wave of refunds has been animating European museums for a few years. France has returned to Senegal and Benin several sets preserved until then in its national collections. The Netherlands is also working to return to the African States concerned the fruits of former colonial looting, just like in Germany, where a turnaround from last year should pave the way for the return of some of the bronzes subtracted in 1897, during the sack of the Edo Palace, in the current Nigerian city of Benin City.
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In recent months, even the British Museum – usually prodigiously hostile to the slightest murmurs of restitution – seems to be heading towards a historic agreement over the Parthenon marbles, coveted by Greece. So why not Egypt? “If I don’t succeed, I know my successors will continue these efforts. It’s a case that we can’t give up.”promises Zahi Hawass.
Discovered in 1799 by French troops of the Egyptian Expeditionthe Stele of Rosette was engraved in the IIe century before our era. His text reports a decree from the reign of the Hellenistic king Ptolemy V. Written three times, in hieroglyphs – the sacred Egyptian script -, in demotic – the current script – and in Greek, he offered in 1822, to Jean-Francois Champollionthe key to deciphering the most sacred and ancient Egyptian texts. The Egyptologist had however had to work on copies of the trilingual stone: the vestige had sold to the United Kingdom in 1801, with the rest of Egypt.
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