The highly anticipated opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) earlier this month has stirred a powerful wave of national pride and cultural awareness across Egypt, prompting archaeologists, ordinary citizens, and historians alike to call for the restitution of some of the nation’s treasured artefacts currently housed in international museums.
This cultural awakening has quickly translated into a public campaign demanding the return of three iconic masterpieces considered central to Egypt’s heritage including the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum in London, the 18th-Dynasty bust of Queen Nefertiti at the Neues Museum in Berlin, and the Dendera Zodiac at the Louvre in Paris.
Advocates argue that with the GEM standing as the ultimate home for ancient Egypt’s legacy, the time has come for these defining symbols of national identity to return to their homeland.
“The pursuit of repatriating Egyptian antiquities is not simply a cultural campaign, but a question of historical legitimacy and civilisational justice,” said Egyptologist and former Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass.
He recalled his long-standing efforts since 2005 to recover some of the most iconic objects held abroad, including the bust of Queen Nefertiti, the Rosetta stone, and the Dendera Zodiac. Despite extensive negotiations, these major museums have continued to refuse their return, citing legal possession or international display value.
Hawass emphasised that the issue transcends national boundaries and called for a broader international reckoning with the legacy of colonial-era acquisitions and the systems that enabled cultural dispossession. He urged museums and cultural institutions worldwide to adopt transparent and ethical acquisition policies, refrain from purchasing artefacts of doubtful provenance, and uphold the principle that the cultural heritage of a people is an inalienable component of their identity and collective memory.
He is also keenly aware of the arguments commonly used to resist repatriation. He said that for years Egypt had been told it could not protect its own heritage. “They claimed that our museums were not properly equipped, that our conservation methods were inadequate, and that if unrest were to occur, our treasures would be at risk. This was the justification used to deny us what is rightfully ours,” he said.
Such views were frequently echoed in academic and museum circles across Europe. Hawass recalled, for instance, a public debate at the University of Oxford in the UK in which senior European museum officials argued that returning Egyptian antiquities was neither feasible nor responsible for the latter reason.
He countered these claims by pointing to Egypt’s unprecedented investment in modern cultural infrastructure, particularly the opening of the GEM and the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation (NMEC) in Cairo.
“The GEM has changed everything, and it marks a turning point in international perceptions of Egypt’s ability to safeguard its cultural legacy,” he affirmed. “It has demonstrated to the world that Egypt possesses the scientific expertise, restoration capabilities, and curatorial standards that rival, and in many cases surpass, the world’s most renowned museums.”
He added that the global climate surrounding restitution is shifting. The acknowledgement by French President Emmanuel Macron that Europe had acquired vast African cultural collections through colonial extraction, alongside renewed efforts by Greece and Ethiopia to recover artefacts from institutions such as the British Museum, signals what Hawass describes as “a new moral awakening”.
He argued that the debate over restitution is also being shaped by the credibility of those who claim custodianship over ancient heritage. The recent scandal at the British Museum, where more than 2,000 artefacts were reportedly stolen from its collections, has fundamentally weakened the argument that Egyptian antiquities are “safer” abroad, he said.
“If the British Museum lost thousands of pieces under its own roof, how can it claim to be a better guardian of our heritage?” he asked. “The Rosetta Stone, and every Egyptian artefact held there, is no safer in London than it is in Cairo.”
The same concerns apply to the Louvre in Paris, particularly following the highly orchestrated four-minute heist last month in which priceless Napoleonic jewels were stolen.
“One of the most decisive turning points in this debate has been the opening of the GEM,” Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly, asserting that the scale, conservation laboratories, and curatorial standards of the museum have reshaped global perceptions of Egypt’s capabilities.
“The GEM changed the conversation. It proved that Egypt not only has the ability to preserve its antiquities, but also to present them at a level that rivals and, in many cases, surpasses the world’s great museums. It has restored confidence, and it has restored dignity,” Hawass confirmed.
Campaign: This shift has also helped fuel a grassroots campaign now gathering momentum within Egypt.
Over recent days, volunteers and students have stood outside the GEM, at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square in Cairo, on the Giza Plateau, and at the NMEC collecting signatures to support the repatriation campaign of Egyptian antiquities held abroad.
According to Hawass, the drive has already gathered around 100,000 signatures, with the goal of reaching one million.
He believes that this public mandate will carry a moral weight that formal diplomatic requests alone cannot. “A national movement has a different force,” he said. “It speaks with the voice of the people, not just the state.”
For now, the campaign remains focused on the three symbolic objects of the Rosetta Stone, the bust of Queen Nefertiti, and the Dendera Zodiac.
As for the statue of Hemiunnu, architect of the Great Pyramid, now housed in the Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim in Germany, and the bust of Ankhaf, overseer of works under the Old Kingdom King Khafre and currently in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, both pieces left Egypt through what were considered legal channels during the early 20th century.
Hawass explained that the Egyptian government of the time presented the statue of Hemiunnu to the German Egyptologist Hermann Junker in recognition of his extensive work uncovering the western necropolis of the Giza Plateau, after which the piece was transferred to the Hildesheim collection.
Similarly, the statue of Ankhaf was given to the American Egyptologist George Reisner, who was working on behalf of Harvard University and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, following his excavation of the intact tomb of Queen Hetepheres, mother of King Khufu.
At the time, a regulation known as “the division of finds” allowed foreign archaeological missions to receive a share of the objects they excavated, though the law stipulated that artefacts from intact tombs were to remain in Egypt.
Despite the latter rule, the bust of Ankhaf, widely regarded as one of the most refined examples of Old Kingdom portraiture, was awarded to Reisner as a gift in recognition of his achievements. It was subsequently shipped to Boston, where it remains on display today.
“Each of the disputed artefacts has a documented history that challenges the legitimacy of its being taken out of Egypt,” Hawass said. He explained that the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799 in the Nile Delta town of Rosetta by soldiers serving in Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt. However, following the defeat of the French by British forces, the Stone was surrendered to the British.
Before handing it over, French scholars produced a copy of the text inscribed on it, while the original was transported to Britain. The following year, the Stone was placed on display in the British Museum in London, where it remains one of the institution’s most visited objects.
Yet, as Hawass noted, its transfer was not the result of scholarly cooperation but of military concession, raising enduring questions about rightful ownership.
Dating from 196 BCE, the Rosetta Stone is inscribed with a decree issued by King Ptolemy V in three scripts, hieroglyphic, demotic, and ancient Greek, and in 1822, this enabled French scholar Jean-François Champollion to make a breakthrough in deciphering hieroglyphics.
Two modern inscriptions on the stone now record key moments in its modern history — “Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801” and “Presented by King George III” to the British Museum.
Similarly, the Dendera Zodiac was removed from the ceiling of the Hathor Temple at Dendera and transported to France in the early 19th century. Hawass explained that the loss of the Zodiac is felt not only for its artistic significance, but also because it represents a crucial early record of Egyptian knowledge of astronomy.
When French General Desaix, a member of Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, first saw the ceiling, he was so captivated that he asked the artist Vivant Denon to sketch it for inclusion in the Description de l’Égypte, the monumental survey of Egypt produced by the expedition.
Later, French collector Sébastien Saulnier decided that such an extraordinary piece should be taken to France. To conceal his intentions, he claimed to be excavating in Thebes, purchasing some mummies and small antiquities to create the impression that this was the focus of his work.
At that time, a group of English travellers was also recording the reliefs at Dendera. Only after they departed did Saulnier return and begin the removal of the Zodiac with the help of his agents. The ceiling section was transported to Paris, where it was eventually sold to King Louis XVIII for 150,000 francs. Today, the original remains in the Louvre, while the Temple at Dendera displays only a replica in its place.
The case of the Nefertiti bust follows a similarly complex trajectory. Its journey from Amarna to Berlin began in December 1912, when German excavator Ludwig Borchardt and his team unearthed the bust of Nefertiti, wife of the monotheistic King Akhenaten, at the Amarna archaeological site inside the workshop of the court sculptor Thutmose.
According to his records, Borchardt immediately recognised the unique nature and artistic value of this piece, as well as its historical importance. Anxious to secure the bust for Germany, he took advantage of the division practice at the time to split the spoils of any new discovery between the Egyptian Antiquities Authority (EAA) and the participating foreign mission.
The law then required that discoveries be brought to the EAA, where a special committee supervised the distribution of the findings.
Borchardt hid the bust under less-important objects in order to take it out of the country. According to Borchardt himself, he did not clean the bust but rather left it covered in mud when he took it to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square for the usual division procedure. The EAA then chose to take limestone statues of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and, thinking that the Nefertiti bust was made of gypsum, a mineral also known in the form of alabaster, gave the invaluable bust to the German expedition.
Regardless of how Germany ended up in possession of the bust, the EAA, not knowing of the bust’s existence, never expressly agreed that this piece should be included in the German share of the Amarna findings. It only found out about it when the bust was put on display at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin in 1923.
The Egyptian government made an attempt to have the bust returned in the 1930s, but German leader Adolf Hitler, who had fallen in love with it, refused and announced that it would remain in Germany forever.
After World War II, Egypt made a formal request for repatriation to the Allied Control Council (ACC), which was responsible at that time for art objects in Germany. Egypt’s Legation in Prague sent a memorandum in April 1946 to the ACC requesting the repatriation of the Nefertiti bust, following it up with an official request from the Egyptian ambassador to the US addressed to the US secretary of state and dated February 1947.
On 8 March 1947, the ACC delivered its response, saying that it did not feel it had the authority to make such a decision, and recommended that the request be made again after a competent German government had been established.
Today, “once the repatriation petition reaches one million signatures, a formal request for restitution [of the three objects] will be submitted by an international lawyer to the relevant French, British, and German authorities, supported by all historical records and legal documentation,” Hawass asserted.
The effort, he noted, will move forward through coordinated diplomatic channels as well as a public information campaign in the press and media. “The aim is to build both national and international support for Egypt’s claim and to pave the way for the eventual display of the artefacts at the GEM as part of the country’s cultural narrative and heritage,” Hawass said.
Prospects: However, not all experts believe that such efforts are likely to succeed.
“All these petitions and public campaigns, in my opinion, are symbolic rather than effective. They are largely made up of media pressure,” said one Egyptologist who requested anonymity.
He argued that neither Britain nor Germany is likely to return artefacts that have become central to their national museums. The Rosetta Stone and the Bust of Nefertiti, for example, are among the most recognisable and visited pieces in the British Museum and the Neues Museum in Berlin.
“I wish we could see them come home, but realistically, this remains a far-fetched dream,” he said.
In principle, he said, Egypt has the right to request the return of all ancient Egyptian collections held in major museums worldwide, arguing that they form “an inseparable part of Egypt’s historical and cultural identity” and therefore belong in their country of origin.
However, he noted that many Western museums built their Egyptology departments around these collections. “Their galleries and their narratives are structured around Egyptian antiquities. Returning them would mean empty halls and the loss of cultural prestige,” he said. “This is why, despite the moral and historical arguments, the practical obstacles remain immense.”
Over the past decade, Egypt has intensified its efforts to safeguard its cultural heritage and recover artefacts illegally smuggled out of the country. Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), emphasised that the state’s strategy has evolved into a comprehensive framework combining legislation, security, diplomacy, and international cooperation.
“Protecting our heritage is not only a cultural responsibility, but also a matter of national identity,” he said. “These objects are not just museum pieces; they are fragments of our historical memory.”
One of the most significant components of this approach has been the tightening of Egypt’s legal framework. Amendments to Antiquities Protection Law No. 117 of 1983 in 2010, 2018, and 2020 introduced harsher penalties for theft and trafficking, with sentences that may reach life imprisonment and fines of millions of pounds.
At the same time, archaeological sites across the country have seen strengthened security measures, from surveillance systems and fencing to the expanded deployment of trained guards. “We have invested heavily in securing our sites and museums,” Khaled explained.
On the repatriation front, Egypt’s General Administration for Antiquities Repatriation operates around the clock to track artefacts appearing in international auction houses, private collections, and online platforms. Databases have been compiled to document missing pieces, while Egyptian archaeologists have been stationed at ports and border crossings to prevent illicit exports.
Diplomatic coordination between the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also played a central role, leading to the signing of bilateral cultural property protection agreements with countries including the United States, Italy, Switzerland, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Jordan.
“Repatriation today is a legal and diplomatic process,” Khaled noted. “But it is also a collaborative one. Many of our international partners now recognise that returning heritage to its place of origin is part of a global ethical shift.”
These combined efforts have produced measurable results. Egypt has recovered nearly 30,000 artefacts over the past ten years. In 2024 alone, 172 pieces were successfully repatriated, and approximately 280 more have been returned in 2025. The SCA has also introduced stricter internal museum inventory procedures, standardised storage systems, and regular audits to ensure the accurate documentation of holdings.
As Egypt stands at the beginning of a new chapter in telling its own story with the opening of the GEM, the debate over repatriation has grown beyond academic circles or ministerial offices and has become a public conversation about identity, history, and cultural dignity.
The GEM now offers not only a home for artefacts long dispersed across the world, but also a symbolic reminder of the continuity of a civilisation that, despite centuries of loss and displacement, remains deeply rooted in the Egyptian consciousness.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 November, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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