Rosetta Stone - Requests For Repatriation To Egypt

Requests For Repatriation To Egypt

In July 2003, on the occasion of the British Museum's 250th anniversary, Egypt first requested the return of the Rosetta Stone. Zahi Hawass, the former chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, asked that the stele be repatriated to Egypt, urging in comments to reporters: "If the British want to be remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity". Two years later in Paris he repeated the proposal, listing the stone as one of several key items belonging to Egypt's cultural heritage, a list which also included the iconic bust of Nefertiti in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin; a statue of the Great Pyramid architect Hemiunu in the Roemer-und-Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim, Germany; the Dendara Temple Zodiac in the Louvre in Paris; and the bust of Ankhhaf from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During 2005, the British Museum presented to Egypt a full-size replica of the stele. This was initially displayed in the renovated Rashid National Museum, close to the site where the stone was found. By November 2005, Hawass was suggesting a three-month loan of the Rosetta Stone, while reiterating the eventual goal of a permanent return; in December 2009, he proposed to drop his claim for the permanent return of the Rosetta Stone if the British Museum loaned the stone to Egypt for three months, for the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza in 2013.

As John Ray has observed, "the day may come when the stone has spent longer in the British Museum than it ever did in Rosetta." There is strong opposition among national museums to the repatriation of objects of international cultural significance such as the Rosetta Stone. In response to repeated Greek requests for return of the Elgin Marbles and similar requests to other museums around the world, in 2002, over 30 of the world's leading museums — including the British Museum, the Louvre, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City — issued a joint statement declaring that "objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values reflective of that earlier era" and that "museums serve not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation".