New Book on Trade in Egyptian Antiquities

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Ashraf El-Ashmawi was for more than seven years the legal consultant for Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), now the Ministry of State for Antiquities. He has a book coming out within days, published by the Lebanese Egyptian Printing House (the German version will be released in October, an English version is in the making). It is titled: 'Legitimate Robberies, on the illicit trade of Egypt’s antiquities'. This relates the history of trade of Egypt’s antiquities during the last 200 years (the blurb says 'illicit trade').

Due to his legal position at the SCA El-Ashmawi witnessed and collaborated in the restitution of almost 5,000 artefacts that have been illegally looted and smuggled out of the country. Legitimate Robberies reveals the mysteries behind several recent antiquities thefts and ones from all the way back to the end of Napoleon's French Expedition to Egypt in 1802. In his book, El-Ashmawi uncovers that laws and regulations that controlled Egypt’s antiquities in earlier centuries actually legitimated the antiquities trade - a major crimhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife, robbing Egypt of its history and civilisation.[...] Among these stories is the controversy over the exhibition in Germany of the exquisite, painted bust of Nefertiti

Uh-oh. El-Ashmawi relates the stories behind several antiquities thefts and the efforts exerted by the SCA and himself to return those objects back to their homeland, Egypt. The ideology behind this book would seem (from this pre-publication blurb) to be that if it is from Egypt, it belongs back in Egypt, no matter under what laws (or lack of them) it was removed in the past. Personally that is not a position I accept. There is a legitimate trade in antiquities of documented collecting histories which take them back to beyond vesting ("retentionist" if you like) legislation.

Nevine El-Aref, 'New Release: Legitimate Robberies, on the illicit trade of Egypt’s antiquities', Ahram Online, Monday 19 Mar 2012

"The world's most disputed antiquities: a top 5 list"

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Melanie Renzulli, 'The world's most disputed antiquities: a top 5 list', Aug 3rd 2011:

One of the biggest arguments in the art world is the repatriation of objects, particularly antiquities. On one side of the debate are art scholars who feel that ancient objects should remain in the care of their current (usually Western) museums or locations. The other side argues that antiquities should be returned to the countries from which they were removed because they were taken during times of war and colonization or were stolen and sold through the highly lucrative art black market.

It's true that a great many antiquities and works of art we enjoy at museums today may have been acquired through looting or other unsavory practices. Here are five of the most famous works of art that have been repatriated or are the focus of an ongoing battle for ownership".

1) Elgin Marbles
Where are they now? The British Museum, London
Where were they? The Parthenon, Athens, Greece [...]

2) Obelisk of Aksum
Where is it now? Aksum, Ethiopia
Where was it? Rome, Italy [...]

3) Objects from King Tut's Tomb
Where are they now? The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Where are they headed? Giza, Egypt [...]

4) Dea Morgantina (Aphrodite)
Where is it now? Aidone, Sicily
Where was it? Getty Museum, Los Angeles [...]

5) Hattuşa Sphinx
Where is it now? Istanbul, Turkey
Where was it? Berlin, Germany [...].

Photo: The London bits of the Parthenon Marbles

Peruvian Conference on Repatriation

The Second International Conference to Recover Stolen Antiquities is being held this year in the Peruvian capital city of Lima, and attendees come from over twenty countries. The first such conference was convened in Cairo in April last year with the presence of thirty countries. Therre does not seem to be much material about it available in the Internet at the time of writing.

Egypt's Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass went there on a four-day visit to share Egyptian experiences with the conference. Egypt’s expertise has,"over the past two years, helped Peru recover twelve archaeological masks from a university, who had borrowed these mask from Peru for many years and refused to return them to their place of origin".

Before leaving to Peru Hawass told Ahram Online that he would concentrate his speech on Egypt’s experience in returning their illegally smuggled antiquities, the development of legislation for the protection of monuments and the preservation of state’s rights to return home their stolen artefacts - even the distinguished objects from international museums. A list of unique artefacts that countries want recovered was prepared in Cairo and named the “Wish List.” Hawass added that the conference in Peru will solidify the position of all of the countries seeking restitution. Here, they will start the required communications and actions to demand the restitution of unique artefacts on display in a number of museums in Europe and the US.

The first session of the conference will be allocated for Egypt, where Hawass will[...] not only highlight Egypt’s interest in developing a legislative structure for the protection of monuments, but will demonstrate Egypt’s use of bilateral agreements as a means to show solidarity and reduce the smuggling of national monuments internationally.

Nevine El-Aref, 'Egypt Minister of Antiquities Hawas to assert rights of countries with ancient civilisations in Peru conference', Saturday 2 Jul 2011

Egypt: Going Back on Partage

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A German court ruling that the University of Leipzig must hand its ancient Egyptian artefacts to the Jewish Claims Conference triggers controversy in Germany and Egypt. The collection spans more than five millennia, since the pre-dynastic era to the Late Intermediate period. Among the most distinguished objects in this collection are the Ebers Papyrus (illustrated right), a medical papyrus purchased by George Ebers, and a small limestone head of the beautiful queen Nefertiti, wife of the monotheistic king Akhenaten:

A German court ruled that the University of Leipzig must hand over its 150 ancient Egyptian artefacts to the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) as compensation for Holocaust victims and their descendants.

This collection came into the possession of the museum of the University of Leipzig in 1936 when the late Jewish professor Georg Steindorff, who held Leipzig’s Egyptology chair, sold it to the museum. Steindorff possessed this collection since 1915 when he excavated the site located to the west of King Khufu’s necropolis in the Giza plateau in a German mission. In accordance with Egyptian law at the time, he received 50 per cent of the discovered artefacts. The court said Steindorff had been forced to sell his collection under Nazi rule for a price far below its actual value.

Leipzig residents are angry the museum would be losing its valuable collection, and under public pressure the Leipzig University promised to appeal the court ruling. For his part Zahi Hawass Minister of State for Antiquities sent an official letter to the JCC demanding restitution of these objects, and threatened to file a lawsuit against it before German and international courts if the JCC did not comply.

Nevine El-Aref , 'Head of Nefertiti emboiled in controversy over German court ruling on Egyptian artifacts', Sunday 29 May 2011

The obligation to repatriate

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There is an opinion piece in the Daily Princetonian by Lily Yu (is an English major from West Windsor, N.J.). She had previously been an intern at Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities in 2009. It is replying to a retentionist article by Aaron Applebaum in the paper a week earlier:

In his column last Tuesday, Aaron Applbaum argued for keeping antiquities in European and American museums regardless of how they got there. Looting should be eliminated, he wrote, but “the returning of already acquired artifacts should not be expected.” [....]

Applbaum is incorrect in claiming that repatriating antiquities would mean removing them from museums and reducing public access to them. Many of the countries requesting repatriation, including Mexico, Egypt, Turkey, Italy and China, have excellent museums of their own. His description of these countries as “geographical and cultural ghettos” is condescending and inaccurate. Repatriation requests are often motivated by a country’s desire to make its cultural heritage available to its own people. In most countries that have suffered and continue to suffer extensive cultural theft, relatively few people can afford to travel to the American and European museums where major pieces of their heritage are on display. In 2010 the per-capita gross domestic product of Great Britain, where the Rosetta Stone is displayed, was $35,000; in Egypt, it was $6,200. The plane ticket between these countries is likely to be more affordable in one than the other. A long-term loan of the Rosetta Stone to Egypt would permit, without loss to the British Museum, millions of Egyptians to view a cornerstone of their history for the first time.

One of the stronger arguments against repatriation is that the security and means for preservation in the requesting countries are sometimes subpar. During the recent revolts in Egypt, archaeological sites and magazines at Saqqara, Abusir and Memphis were looted, and several museums in Cairo were attacked. But our responsibility to these security failures should not be to pat ourselves on the back for wisely refusing to return their antiquities. It is easy to approach the problem of preservation from a paternalistic point of view. But it is better to offer freely, when and where it is needed, our help in safeguarding a country’s museums and archaeological sites, by monitoring the traffic of antiquities over national borders, donating security systems and equipment or sending experts in conservation. By doing so we would discourage looting, improve cultural institutions around the globe, strengthen our relations with other countries and contribute to the maintenance of our world’s cultural heritage.

In this postcolonial world, we must recognize the sovereignty of other states not only in self-government but also in the management of their cultural patrimonies. While recognizing the importance of the legal acquisition of antiquities by museums, we cannot forget our obligations to those countries that have been plundered of their pasts, and we ought, where it is legally or ethically required of us, to repatriate — to render unto Egypt what is Egypt’s.

Some good points here to counter those of the cultural property retentionists who would like to see the world's heritage split up and scattered - as long as a goodly proportion of it is in "universal" museums in their own country.

Photo: General Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, 1st Baronet GCB GCVO GBE KCMG DSO TD
(1861-1953) Governor-General of the Sudan, British High Commissioner in Egypt

Hawass' Shopping List

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Zahi Hawass has a shopping list of six unique artefacts which he wants returned to Egypt,

1) the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum in London, with the help of which we were able to decipher the hieroglyphic language;



2) the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin;
3) the Dendera Zodiac ceiling bas-relief from the ceiling of the pronaos of a chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera in Upper Egypt, which is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris;
4) the bust of the pyramid builder Ankhaf kept in the Fine Arts Museum in Boston in the United States;
5) the statue of Hemiunu, believed to be the architect of the pyramid of Khufu which is in the Pelizaeus Museum, Hildesheim, Germany. This statue is scheduled to be loaned for the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in 2011.
6) a statue of Ramesses II in Turin, Italy.

Kwame Opoku on the Recent Looting in Egypt and the Repatriation Debate

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Kwame Opoku has a well-argued response (Restitution and Recent Upheavals in Egypt, March 24, 2011) to the comments of the antiquity dealers and collectors lobbyists alleging that the recent looting in Egypt shows what a bad idea restitution of scattered cultural heritage to their source countries is. Those who are against restitution will use the present situation as an excuse for rejecting the restitution of certain items.

Opoku argues that the disorder, revolt or revolution in Egypt does not change the nature of the debate on restitution nor does it provide any convincing excuse for the retentionists in the Western world. The determination of some museums and collectors not to return certain items to Egypt has never been based on the security or insecurity in Egypt. In all the previous thirty years in which Hosni
Mubarak ruled Egypt there were no reported major disturbances, but still the "cultural property retentionists" refused to return some of the Egyptian artefacts as requested by Zahi Hawass.

If we look at the other cases of restitution, for example, the Benin bronzes, we note that there is no revolution in Nigeria and yet for more than hundred years, including the period when Nigeria was a British colony, the British Museum refused to return the bronzes though the venerable museum has at times been very willing to sell these objects even to Nigeria. [...] Similarly, the British have been unwilling to return the golden Asante regalia they looted from Asante (Ghana) in 1874 even though the country which was British colony until 1957 has been peaceful without any major civil unrest [...]. Again, if we consider the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles, there is no disorder in Athens but the British Museum is not considering the return of the marbles to Athens. Clearly, those who argue against returning artefacts to Egypt are using a very convenient but unconvincing argument. They will not convince anyone who has carefully followed the debates on the issue in the last years.

Opoku then turns his attention to the person who has done more than anyone to raise awareness of these issues in the past years:

Many Western museum directors may be rejoicing at the resignation and departure of Zahi Hawass from the position of the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities. Let them rejoice for the period of respite they have unexpectedly gained will be shorter than they wish. The question of restitution was there before Hawass came and will remain after his departure and after all of us are gone if attitudes in the West do not change. Whatever happens to Hawass in the post Mubarak period, one must acknowledge that the celebrated archaeologist has rendered to Egypt and to Africa immense services which many others envy. He has made the issue of restitution known to a broader public in the world. Which other archaeologist is as well-known as the famous Egyptian archaeologist? He has made archaeology a lively subject for many persons. He has restored to Egypt, Egyptology, a science dominated for too long by Westerners. Westerners can no longer go to Egypt as if they were going to an archaeological supermarket to take whatever they want. They have to seek permission which may be refused and they may be asked to leave the country. One may not always like his style and tactics but there is no gainsaying that Hawass has been more successful with his approach than many others. The dedication and enthusiasm he brought to the issue of restitution deserve the admiration of all honest people. [...] How many people can bring such energy and dedication to their work? We wish other countries had such worthy and energetic representatives who speak out clearly in the cultural field. The West, of course, has never liked intellectuals and representatives of non-Western peoples who know their work and articulate their positions boldly. A man like Hawass who mastered modern media and used them effectively was a thorn in the flesh of many. [...] One undoubted achievement of Zahi Hawass was his success in bringing together states with restitution claims in April 2010 to the Cairo Conference on restitution - Conference on International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage - in Cairo, on April 7 and 8, 2010. For the first time, States with restitution claims met for two days to discuss common problems and to develop
strategies for recovering/stolen/looted cultural artefacts. In addition to emphasizing that ownership of cultural heritage by the country of origin does not expire, nor does it face prescription, the communique issued at the end of the conference added that the efforts initiated in Cairo should be pursued and expanded upon and there should be continued consultations among the participants as well as with other countries and institutions.

The dismemberment of the SCA which was to liaise with other delegations for the preparation of the next meeting and outlining the future activities of the Conference leaves the future of the initiative difficult to predict, but the very fact that it took place was an important step.

Opoku concludes:

The recent events in Egypt may be analysed and assessed differently but it would clearly be illegitimate to argue that the temporary disorder in that country offers a valid reason for not returning artefacts illegally taken from Egypt. Certainly, we do not expect anybody to return artefacts in the midst of revolts and public disorder. This situation however will improve soon and the retentionists in the West will be exposed for their dishonest arguments which are based on grounds other than the present disorder.

Indeed, now the (initial) anti-government demonstrations are over, the main source of danger to antiquities in Egypt is continuing theft from sites and museum stores which Opoku is right to link with the appetite of the foreign antiquities markets, he quotes the view of Prof. Barry Kemp:

The most useful thing the international community can do about this is to examine its conscience. The looting of sites is done to satisfy the market in antiquities, which continues to flourish in Europe and the US. It is now a reasonable assumption that any Egyptian piece that is for sale is either fake or was looted.

Cairo Conference: International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage

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Cairo Conference: "International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage" From Paul Barford's Portable Antiquities and Heritage Issues Blog (7th April 2010)
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A lot of press attention has been received by the Cairo conference “International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage ” being held at an administration building next to Cairo’s opera house, 7th-8th April. This concerns the trafficking of ancient artefacts as trophies and seeks to find ways of securing the return of these artefacts which are now in the museums and collections of Europe and the United States.

The main subject of the current spate of news stories is the determination of the delegates to present a united front on these issues. As Zahi Hawass, the convener of the session and rapidly becoming the figurehead of the cultural property trophy artefacts repatriation movement pointed out to his audience: “We need to co-operate, we need a unification between our countries. Every country is fighting alone; every country suffered alone, especially Egypt". “We will battle together ... "Maybe we will not succeed in a lifetime, [but] we have to open the subject".

The session will discuss strategies for recovering key works from foreign museums. One proposal was that the delegates should produce one list of artifacts that world opinion should demand return home. "We need to co-operate all of us especially with that wish list. we need all of us to come with one list and fight until [we get these] artefacts back”, Hawass is reported as saying. He emphasized that countries are not seeking to reclaim all antiquities, simply those taken illegally and artifacts of great historical value to the original country. The range of artefacts involved is quite wide, and many of them have already been widely discussed. Greece wants the British Museum to return the Parthenon Marbles; Mexico seeks the feathered headdress of Montezuma which is now in Vienna’s Museum of Ethnology; the Nigerians wants bronzes and other items from Benin back from the British Museum, Egypt wants the Rosetta Stone and bust of Nefertiti and a number of other ‘iconic’ items scattered in several European collections.

The conference stressed that even in cases where these objects had been legally acquired by standards of over a century ago, this is more of a question of goodwill, of surrendering cultural items held as hostages by formerly powerful nations as a symbol of power and domination. “Forget the legal issue,” Hawass is quoted as having said. “Important icons should be in their motherland, period”.
Another of the aims of the conference was to find ways of ensuring a more fuller implementation of the 1970 UNESCO convention under which countries agreed measures to prevent the illegal export of national treasures. Hawass pointed out that international rules and treaties are of little use in getting key relics back; several international conventions since 1954 have prohibited wartime looting, theft and resale of artifacts. These conventions do not however apply to items taken abroad before national laws or global agreements were in force. The conference delegates are expected to conclude that they should. It has been stated that a major initiative for the conference will therefore be to draft an appeal to amend the 1970 UNESCO Convention. In its current form, the Convention is not retroactive, but the delegates are reported to want it changed so that it applies to items acquired prior to that date. A united stand between affected nations would bolster the claims.

The continued looting that erodes the archaeological record of the unlucky “source countries” is also a source of concern. Apart from indiscriminate private collectors, “museums are the main source for stolen artifacts. If they stop (buying stolen artifacts) the theft will be less," Hawass told delegates. Nevertheless some advances have been made. Hawass also pointed out “we have good cooperation with other countries. We have had artifacts returned from Spain, Italy but the number one country that has returned artifacts is the United States". He discretely did not add that the US was probably the number one country which provides a market for stolen antiquities, with (according to ACCG figures) an estimated 50 000 collectors of ancient dug-up coins alone.

It seems to me that the programme of this conference is a trifle over-ambitious for such a short meeting. Defining a wish list of artefacts to be returned may sound easy, but to be effective it needs to be global in extent, and not exclude nations that were prevented from sending delegates for one reason or another (was Israel invited for example?). Also it is likely to mix objects which are not where delegates would want them to be for different reasons. Should the Benin Punitive Mission of 1897 be seen in the same terms as Lord Elgin's men about a century earlier sawing off bits of a ruined building to make portable pieces of art? It seems to me that two days for a presentation of the issues and debate on this one topic alone are scarcely enough if it is intended to produce by the end of the meeting a definitive list.

Secondly there is no way that (however much one might regret the way it is phrased) the 1970 UNESCO Convention can be amended to be retrospective. The very notion is simply naïve. At the very inkling of such a thing happening key market nations will withdraw and the whole shaky edifice of international co-operation on its basis will collapse. This is a pity because the UNESCO Convention is full of holes and we do need another better one. Nevertheless rendering it retrospective to include past “wrongs” really is not its function, neither is it practical (I think the 1970 cut-off date for legitimacy is already too much in the “historical past” of the antiquities). I also wonder to what extent it is really needed to regulate what must in the end be settled by compromise and gestures of goodwill between nations – and yes, naming and shaming and even a little gentle academic-political blackmail like the resolution of the Louvre stolen TT15 relief affair.

I am therefore unsure what the purpose of “uniting” would be and what form that could take. Perhaps the reports of the conference’s final conclusions tomorrow will give a better idea.


Marwa Awad, Egypt urges states to cooperate on artifact return, Reuters Television Apr 7, 2010.
Daniel Williams Egypt Leads Multinational Call to Bring Disputed Relics Home April 07, 2010
CBC News Teamwork needed to recover looted antiquities: Hawass , April 7, 2010
Unite to recover looted artefacts, Egypt forum told

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Vignette: "The British Museum Looter of Africa"photomontage.