The French National Assembly’s passage of a law in January facilitating the return of looted antiquities from the colonial era has reopened the issue of recovering Egyptian artifacts held in European museums, according to certain Egyptian archaeologists.
Among these are the Dendera Zodiac, the Rosetta Stone, and the bust of Nefertiti.
A senior archaeologist at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Magdy Shaker, explained that the issue of recovering Egyptian antiquities from abroad is “extremely thorny and complex.”
Artifacts in France fall under the concept of “public property,” making their legal handling extremely difficult, he noted.
Shaker pointed out that the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property stipulates that any object that left its country of origin before that date is subject to a different legal status.
He added that the recovery of antiquities is handled on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the circumstances of their removal from Egypt – whether through theft, smuggling, sale, or division of property before the enactment of Law #117 of 1983 concerning the Protection of Antiquities.
Shaker explained that the Dendera Zodiac, housed in the Louvre Museum, is a controversial example, as it was removed during the French campaign and transported to France with the approval of the ruling authority at the time.
A turning point
He noted that this new French law could be considered a “point in the road,” emphasizing that moral, political, and public pressure could yield results.
Shaker called for the formation of a comprehensive legal team comprised of representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities, as well as international law experts, to study artifacts located abroad.
Archaeologist and Egyptologist Ahmed Amer confirmed that the state has been striving for years to recover certain high-profile antiquities located abroad, but the matter is politically complicated – especially if they left before the enactment of the Antiquities Protection Law.
An expert in Egyptian antiquities and director of the Zahi Hawass Foundation for Antiquities and Heritage, Ali Abu-Dashish, pointed out that the efforts led by Hawass to recover the bust of Nefertiti, the Rosetta Stone, and the Dendera Zodiac have firmly placed the Egyptian cause on the international stage.
He noted that the Dendera Zodiac, currently housed in the Louvre Museum, meets the criteria for restitution under the new French law, as it was removed from the Dendera Temple in 1821.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
