Antiquities Feuding Between France And Egypt

The article goes on to quote Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. I immediately recognized Hawass as a central player in Sharon Waxman’s 2008 nonfiction book “Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World,” which I’m in the midst of reading.

In fact, Hawass is a main character in the introduction to Waxman’s book. He probably earns that spotlight because he has been so very intent on recovering Egyptian antiquities. Yet, as the Yahoo! article explains, the process of tracing who owns what is quite complicated.

I’ll try to explain some elements as I understand them from reading Waxman’s book:

* If the Western countries had not taken many of the ancient treasures back to their own museums, many of those treasures would have disappeared due to lack of interest in the country where the treasures were found. And many of these countries still do not have the public funds or public interest to properly preserve the treasures if they are returned.

* Who do the treasures actually belong to? If Greek vases made for the export market were in fact exported to Italy thousands of years ago and then dug up in Italy now, do these Greek vases belong to Italy or Greece?

* What about returning treasures to countries whose state religion now sees those artifacts as undesirable from a religious point of view? Are these countries likely to take good care of the antiquities?

* And what about the numbers of people who can actually see the treasures, for example, at the Louvre or British Museum in contrast to the much smaller number of people who would be able to see these treasures in their “home” lands, whichever the home lands turn out to be?

FYI – If you’re wondering whether the return of these treasures matters to you, I’ll point out that the Rosetta Stone, which I’ve seen in the British Museum in London, is just one of the famous Egyptian antiquities that Hawass wants returned.

If you want to know more about this fascinating area of art history, read Waxman’s book “Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World.”

Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller
”What You Should Know About Branding Your Business”
Los Angeles, CA
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