Rosetta Stone update

Unsurprisingly, the British Museum has declined to send the Rosetta Stone to Egypt:

Zahi Hawass, general secretary of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, is behind the calls for the return of items. His latest project is to "recover all the antiquities stolen from Egypt" for an exhibition next year.

The problem is that he has been openly stating that the Rosetta Stone belongs to Egypt, so when he proposed that it be lent to the Cairo Museum for a few months. . .

But Mr Hawass is determined to get the museum to change its mind so the engraved tablet can form the centrepiece to the new wing of the Cairo museum. He said the Egypt Museum would only refuse to lend artefacts to other institutions if they were fragile. And he said he had already pledged to lend Tutankhamen relics to the British Museum for a forthcoming exhibition. He said the British Museum "should not be selfish, they should be fair".

Not exactly comparable cases, since Egypt has nothing to fear about foreign museums refusing to return its loans.

Posted by David on July 30, 2003 10:06 AM