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Compromise over Rosetta Stone fight?
Dr. Zahi Hawass, the head of Egyptian Antiquities Council, has offered a compromise in his battle with the British Museum over the return of the Rosetta Stone.The stone was discovered by French archaeologists in 1799 but went to the British Empire in 1801 as spoils of war after they ejected Napoleon from Egypt. It's one of the most important of ancient Egyptian artifacts because it has the same text written in hieroglyphs, demotic (another Egyptian script), and ancient Greek. Until its discovery nobody could read ancient Egyptian, but Greek had never been forgotten. The key to unlock one of the world's greatest civilizations had been found.
The Rosetta Stone is one of the treasures of the British Museum, but Dr. Hawass has been leading a fight to get it back. Now he's said he'll stop if the British Museum loans the stone to Egypt for a few months.
If it did make it back to Egypt, it would probably be displayed in Cairo's newly revamped National Museum, a jaw-dropping collection of ancient treasures.
The Brits might want to take him up on this. Dr. Hawass has been a tireless crusader and has already gotten the Metropolitan Museum of Art to return a stolen artifact and had a similar victory with the Louvre. He's shown he won't give up until Egypt's heritage is back home.
Filed under: Arts and Culture, History, Africa, Europe, Egypt, United Kingdom, News
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dr.Kwame Opoku Dec 20th 2009 2:38PM
I have enjoyed your comments but would like to add that this is not an issue between the dynamic Secretary of the Antiquities Museum but between Britain and Egypt. We must see the issue in the context of the large-scale carting away of thousands of Egyptian artefacts to the Western world and the need for the Egyptian people to take control of their over their culture and hence their destiny, free from interference of others. In view of the thousands of Egyptian objects that the British Museum has, it should be prepared to return the Rosetta Stone, even if Egypt had no right to this object. All agree, including the British Museum, that the stone is crucial to understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics and culture. Nobody ever suggested that it was a key to understanding of British culture. So who needs it more, the British who took it from the defeated French with no right to it or the Egyptians who produced it in their culture?
International cooperation must indicate to the British, the Germans, the French and other Westerners, that it is time to send a few things back to Egypt and the other African countries from which the West took so much under dubious circumstances
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bath mateus Dec 22nd 2009 3:32AM
Amazing so nice posting, I like it.Add more information it will be better...
Bathmate