France to return Egypt artifacts after tiff

October 10, 2009|Associated Press

PARIS - France’s culture minister agreed yesterday to return five painted wall fragments to Egypt after a row over their ownership prompted the Egyptians to cut ties with the Louvre Museum.

A committee of 35 specialists unanimously recommended that France give back the painted wall fragments from a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor.

Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand “immediately decided to follow this recommendation,’’ his office said in a statement. It was not clear when France would send the fragments back to Egypt.

Mitterrand said that the items were acquired by the Louvre in “good faith’’ and that the decision to return them reflects France’s and the Louvre’s commitment of “resolute action against illegal trafficking of cultural goods.’’

Egypt’s antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, described the disputed fragments as pieces of a burial fresco showing the nobleman Tetaki’s journey to the afterlife.

Hawass took his campaign to recover the nation’s lost treasures to a new level Wednesday by cutting ties with the Louvre. It was the most aggressive effort yet by Hawass, Egypt’s tough and media-savvy chief archeologist, to reclaim what he says are antiquities stolen from the country and purchased by museums.

Thousands of antiquities were spirited out of the country during Egypt’s colonial period and afterward by archeologists, adventurers, and thieves.

France is full of emblems of Egyptian history, from the Obelisk of Luxor at the Place de la Concorde, given to France by an Egyptian viceroy in the 19th century, to halls of sculptures, sarcophagi, and other works in the Louvre.