Egyptians Call on British Museum to Return Rosetta Stone – As the British Museum commemorates 200 years since decoding hieroglyphics, thousands of Egyptians have demanded the return of the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone made it possible to decode Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols for the first time in centuries.
An organizer of one petition calling for the stone to be returned to Egypt, dean of the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Dr Monica Hanna, said: “The British Museum’s holding of the stone is a symbol of Western cultural violence against Egypt.” Repatriate Rashid is made up of Egyptian archaeologists who want the stone, and 16 other objects, to be returned to Egypt.
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According to the British Museum, an Egyptian official signed the surrender agreement; but, according to Repatriate Rashid, the treaty violated local rules at the time. Egypt’s former minister for antiquities affairs, Zahi Hawass, claims Egypt had no say in the 1801 surrender deal when British forces defeated the French in Egypt, and several antiquities were handed to forces of the British empire.
The number of signatures on Monica’s petition is 4,200, while Zahi’s is over 100,000. Zahi Hawass is also calling on the Berlin Neues Museum to return the bust of Nefertiti and the Louvre to return the Dendera Zodiac ceiling. In September, the USA returned six antiquities to Egypt worth more than $4 million after an investigation found they had been illegally trafficked.
During a raid on the house of American billionaire and antiquities collector Michael Steinhardt, several of these artifacts were seized, while others were from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In June, five looted Egyptian antiquities were returned to the museum, and in 2019 a gold coffin that had been trafficked out of Egypt during the 2011 uprising was returned.
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On Monday, the director general of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments received six objects that had been stolen by British soldiers in the 19th century from Benin City, Nigeria. Experts hope the move by the Horniman Museum in London, the first in the UK to do so, will encourage the British Museum to hand back objects in its collection.
