Posted on 03/01/2006 10:35:43 AM PST by nickcarraway
CAIRO -- Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Thursday that it has asked a US museum to return a Pharaoh's golden mask, which it said had disappeared from a storage area in Cairo's Egyptian Museum.
It asked the Saint Louis Art Museum in Missouri to return the mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, which it said dated to the XIX dynasty and had been spotted by an Egyptologist in a recent tour of the Missouri museum collection.
The mummy mask "was discovered by Egyptian archaeologist Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim in 1952 and was placed in the museum's storage area in 1959", said a statement by Zahi Hawass, the Council's secretary-general.
The Council asked Egypt's prosecutor general to follow up on the matter with US authorities.
Hawass added that several works of art had been lost after being placed years ago in the museum's disorderly storage area.
The US museum bought the mask in 1998 for $500,000 from an antiquities company called Phoenix Ancient Art run by two Lebanese brothers, Hisham and Ali Abutam.
Another Egyptian archaeological official had last week asked a Swiss museum to return the left eye of the statue of Pharaoh Amenhotep III that it said had been stolen from a temple in Luxor, south of Cairo.
All right. That's it. I've got to find a reliable image host!
The Egyptians stole the image.
Right after Egypt "returns" the World Trade Center to NYC, as it seems to have been taken away by savages led by an Egyptian, Mohammad Atta
Call me a sceptic, but this smells like a scam.
It goes like this: The curator of the egyptian antiquities storage "sells" the mask to two Lebanese brothers, who then sell it to a US museum. The curator then sends someone to the museum who "finds" the missing mask and reports it the government, who demands it back. Meanwhile the Curator feigns ignorance.
This little conspiracy, however, depends on the timelines involved. As in the length of time from sale to the museum to its "discovery" by the wanderiing egyptologist that happened to "know" that the mask he saw had been stolen from a storeroom in egypt.
That raises another question. How did this guy know that the mask was stolen and/or missing?
Peru is demanding that Yale University return an entire collection of antiquities excavated at Machu Picchu in 1912 that it insists was deposited at Yale only as a loan.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/2E25424B3CC6C68E8625712000813AC6?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2C%22antiquities%22
Greece and Turkey also claim that U.S. museums hold artifacts looted from their soil.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000088&sid=a_6ssJtZ2pt0&refer=culture
Ethiopia wanted obelisk returned to it from Italy. They got it back, but it is still sitting pieces.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=vn20060227011059174C927322
Too lazy to Google right now, but I expect there are some who would try to tie the the Crusades to a return of artifacts from the West today.
That's because nationalism as an ideology didn't really arise until the 18th and 19th century.
Egyptians have incorporated Ancient Egypt into their national myth (we are better because we are older, etc- see Italy, Greece, Iran & Japan for more on this theory), and consequently, old rocks become culturally very significant around this time.
That, and they didn't get formal independence until 1922- its kind of hard to chase after your national treasures when you are part of the Ottoman Empire.
Would that be Hileary! or Helen Thomas?
That happened/happens everywhere. In a subsitence or non-rich culture, locals always quarry the ancient ruing for stones for their house or grab the assorted oddities for mundance purposes.It's only richer societies who have the resources and leisure to promote the importance of preserving the past.
alas...
Out of Egypt [Saint Louis Art Museum, Ka-Nefer-Nefer mask]
Riverfront Times | Feb 15, 2006 | Malcolm Gay
Posted on 02/18/2006 11:17:53 PM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1581448/posts
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Hell, that guy has sent me about twenty of those 36x36 posters, one for every time I mention his name on an FR thread, regardless of what I say about him. Damned nuisance. I'm sure they'll be really valuable someday.
It has changed. Not only are they building a new museum near Giza to house much of the stuff, they've finally gotten around to cleaning out the basement of the old one. I had Zahi Hawass' predecessor, Dr. Gaballa Ali Gaballa, as an Egyptology teacher back in 1981, and he told me there were so many statues, mummies, sarcophagi, papyrus scrolls, etc. in the museum basement, that we could answer all the questions we have about ancient Egypt, just by studying that material!
Wait a minute, didn't the article say that was a pharaoh's mask? I never heard of a pharaoh named Ka-nefer-nefer. Maybe there was one during one of the intermediate periods, but certainly not in the XIX dynasty.
Where do you park your car? I'll gladly steal it and return it to you for a finder's fee (or buy it "hot" and do the same).
Give it back. It belongs in Egypt, it's a part of their heritage. It should be given back with the condition that Egypt will send, on a regular basis, road shows to the US with Egyptian relics so everyone can have access to them.
Only a technicality. :') I think Ka-nefer-nefer reigned just before the Pharaoh Iko-Iko-wundai.
I'm glad to hear that. There are many amazing things there.....
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