[MSN] Egypt will request loan of artifacts

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

  Egypt will request loan of artifacts

 From the Associated Press

May 1, 2007

Egypt plans to seek the temporary return of some of its most precious 
artifacts from museums abroad, including the Rosetta Stone and a bust of 
Nefertiti.

The country's chief archeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the Foreign Ministry 
would send letters this week requesting that the ancient artifacts be 
loaned to Egypt.

Hawass has previously demanded the permanent return of many of the 
artifacts, claiming some of them were taken illegally.

This time, the country is requesting museums loan the artifacts so they 
can be exhibited either at the 2011 opening of the Egyptian Museum, near 
the site of the Great Pyramids at Giza, or the Atum museum, which is set 
to open in the Nile Delta city of Meniya in 2010, the Supreme Council of 
Antiquities said in a statement.

Egypt said it would request the loans from the British Museum, Paris' 
Louvre, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and two German museums.

The Rosetta Stone, a 1,680-pound slab of black basalt with a triple 
inscription, was the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. 
It is one of the centerpieces of the British Museum.

"We have never received a written request to loan the Rosetta Stone," 
British Museum spokeswoman Hannah Boulton said. "If one was put in, we 
would consider it."

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