CAIRO (AP) — The issue over who owns ancient relics has become an increasing concern for museums in Europe and the United States, and the Rosetta Stone, the most visited object in the British Museum, has been thrust into the limelight.
The writings on the dark grey granite block were the key to decoding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics when they were captured from Egypt by British empire soldiers in 1801.
Now, as the largest museum in the United Kingdom commemorates the 200th anniversary of the decipherment of hieroglyphics, hundreds of Egyptians are demanding the repatriation of the stone.
“The British Museum’s possession of the stone is a symbol of Western cultural aggression against Egypt,” stated Monica Hanna, head of the Arab Academy of Science, Technology & Maritime Transport and coordinator of one of two petitions requesting the stone’s repatriation.
On November 6, 2022, the “Rosetta Stone of Climate” monument will be unveiled in Brussels.
The purchase of the Rosetta Stone was entangled with imperial conflicts between Britain and France. Near 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s military takeover of Egypt, French scientists discovered the stone in the northern town of Rashid, also known as Rosetta to the French. When British forces defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, the stone and more than a dozen other artifacts were given back to the British as part of a surrender agreement between the two sides’ generals.
Since then, it has stayed at the British Museum.
With 4,200 signatures, Hanna’s petition asserts that the stone was illegally acquired and represents “war booty.” The argument is mirrored in a petition with more than 100,000 signatures by Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former minister of antiquities affairs. Hawass contends that Egypt did not have a voice in the 1801 accord.
The British Museum disagrees. In a statement, the Museum stated that an Egyptian delegate signed the 1801 pact. It alludes to an Ottoman admiral who fought alongside British forces against the French. At the time of Napoleon’s invasion, the nominal ruler of Egypt was the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul.
The Museum also stated that the Egyptian government has not requested its repatriation. According to the document, there are 28 known copies of the same engraved decree, of which 21 exist in Egypt.
Egyptians want it back as Britain’s largest museum commemorates 200 years since the decipherment of hieroglyphics.
The controversy surrounding the original stone copy arises from its unparalleled importance to Egyptology. The slab, which was carved in the second century B.C., has three translations of a decree concerning a settlement between the then-ruling Ptolemies and a group of Egyptian priests. The first inscription is written in traditional hieroglyphics, the second in a hieroglyphic script known as Demotic, and the third in Ancient Greek.
Through this information, scholars were able to translate the hieroglyphic symbols, with French Egyptologist Jean-Francois Champollion deciphering the language in 1822.
“Scholars since the 18th century have longed to discover a bilingual book written in a recognized language,” said Ilona Regulski, the British Museum’s director of Egyptian Written Culture. Regulski is the chief curator of the museum’s winter exhibition, “Hieroglyphs Unlocking Ancient Egypt,” which commemorates the bicentennial of Champollion’s discovery.
This stone is one of over one hundred thousand Egyptian and Sudanese artifacts kept in the British Museum. The majority were acquired under the British colonial occupation of the area from 1883 to 1953.
The British Museum reports that an Egyptian delegate signed the 1801 pact.
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Nearly every month, fresh examples are recorded of museums and collectors returning relics to their native nation. Usually, it is the consequence of a court order, but in certain situations, it is voluntary and is an act of atonement for previous wrongs.
In September, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York repatriated 16 antiquities to Egypt after a U.S. inquiry determined they had been unlawfully smuggled. Following a request from Nigeria’s government, the Horniman Museum in London sent 72 artifacts, including 12 Benin Bronzes, to Nigeria on Monday.
A Boston-based attorney specialized in matters involving art and antiques, Nicholas Donnell, stated that there is no worldwide legal framework for such conflicts. Repatriation is at the discretion of the museum unless there is convincing proof that an artifact was acquired unlawfully.
“Given the treaty and the timeline, winning the legal struggle over the Rosetta Stone will be difficult,” said Donnell.
The British Museum has admitted that it has received many requests for the repatriation of antiquities from other nations, but it has not provided the Associated Press with any information regarding their status or number. It also does not clarify whether any artifacts from its collection had ever been returned.
According to Nigel Hetherington, CEO of the online academic forum Past Preserves and an archaeologist, the museum’s lack of openness reveals other motivations.
“It’s about money, keeping relevance, and the concern that people would stop visiting if certain goods are returned,” he explained.
Western museums have long argued that their possession of world treasures is justified by their superior facilities and bigger attendance figures. Egypt saw an increase in artifact smuggling during the 2011 revolt that deposed tyrant Hosni Mubarak, which cost the government an estimated $3 billion between 2011 and 2013, according to the U.S. Antiquities Coalition. It was revealed in 2015 that cleaners at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo had damaged the burial mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamun by attempting to reattach the beard with superglue.
Since then, President Abdel Fattah el-administration Sissi’s has made substantial investments in Egypt’s antiquities. Egypt has successfully retrieved thousands of globally smuggled antiques and intends to create a freshly constructed, state-of-the-art museum that can contain tens of thousands of items. The Grand Egyptian Museum has been under construction for many years, and its inauguration has been repeatedly delayed.
The British Museum has around 100,000 Egyptian and Sudanese artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone.
AFP Images via Getty
The tourist sector in Egypt generated $13 billion in 2021, with the pyramids of Giza and the towering sculptures of Abu Simbel along the Sudanese border serving as the industry’s lure.
Priority should remain the Egyptians’ ability to access their own history, according to Hanna. She said, “How many Egyptians can fly to London or New York?”
In response to a request for comment on Egypt’s approach toward the Rosetta Stone and other Egyptian treasures shown abroad, Egyptian authorities did not answer. Hawass and Hanna have stated that they do not expect the authorities to obtain its return.
Hawass stated that the Rosetta Stone is the symbol of Egyptian nationality. I shall utilize the media and the intelligentsia to inform the (British) museum that they have no legal standing.
»Egyptians demand that the British Museum return the Rosetta Stone«