A collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts is displayed during a repatriation ceremony between the United States and Egypt after the recovery of the items by the FBI's Art Crime Team at the FBI Los Angeles Field Office in the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles. AFP
Fathy said Egypt would continue pressing for the return of its cultural heritage while ensuring that its claims were supported by evidence. The campaign combines legal and diplomatic action with monitoring international auction houses and online networks involved in the illegal trade of antiquities.
Speaking on the Al-Hayat Al-Youm programme on Al-Hayat TV, Fathy said ministry employees had been assigned to monitor the dark web and auctions worldwide for Egyptian artefacts suspected of having been illegally removed from the country.
“We never stop demanding the return of our antiquities held abroad,” he said.
Fathy said countries holding Egyptian antiquities proven to have left the country under questionable circumstances should voluntarily return them rather than wait for Cairo to submit formal requests. He described the return of antiquities as an ethical matter involving both rights and responsibilities.
“We will not stop pressing our claims, but we will not make unsupported assertions,” he added.
His comments came days after the latest US handover of 48 Egyptian cultural artefacts during an FBI ceremony in Los Angeles. Investigators determined that the Pharaonic, Roman, and Coptic objects had been illegally trafficked and found no records showing that they had lawfully left Egypt.
The handover was conducted under a 2016 cultural property agreement between Egypt and the United States, which provides a framework for identifying, intercepting, and returning trafficked objects.
In April 2026, Egypt recovered 13 antiquities from America through cooperation involving the New York District Attorney’s Office, Egypt’s Public Prosecution, and the Tourism and Antiquities Police.
Another 36 artefacts from the United States were returned in November 2025. The collection included a Roman-era mummy mask, 24 rare manuscripts containing Coptic and Syriac texts, and an 18th-Dynasty painted relief.
Fathy did not specify the period covered by his new figure of more than 1,500 recovered objects. An earlier official count, published in December 2021, said Egypt had recovered nearly 30,000 antiquities since 2011, including 5,300 objects in 2021 alone.
Because “recent years” was not defined in Fathy’s remarks, the two totals cover different stated periods and should not be treated as directly comparable.
The minister also stressed the importance of public pressure, particularly from archaeologists, heritage specialists, and other civil-society figures.
“That is why civil society should act as it sees fit on this issue,” he said.
Such pressure has previously taken the form of an international online petition launched by renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass in 2022, demanding the return of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum and the Dendera Zodiac from the Louvre.
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