Will Egypt handle to deliver residence all smuggled artifacts?

CAIRO — Egypt’s Public Prosecution introduced on Dec. 20 that Egypt recovered 36 artifacts from Madrid that had been smuggled to Spain in 2014.

The Public Prosecution wrote in a Fb submit on Dec. 20 that the Egypt-Spain judicial cooperation to fight any such transnational crime resulted within the restoration of artifacts. That is additionally “an implementation of the UN decision that was issued based mostly on a proposal submitted by the Egyptian Public Prosecution on the Convention of the Events to the UN Conference towards Transnational Organized Crime in October 2020. It’s also an implementation of the Egyptian Public Prosecution’s plan to have a world instrument for the restoration of looted Egyptian artifacts as a part of the Egyptian state’s technique to protect its historical past and assets.”

The Egyptian Public Prosecution said that its investigations into this case started in June 2014 “when the Egyptian Ministry of International Affairs obtained correspondence from the Spanish authorities about seizing 36 Egyptian artifacts from Alexandria within the port of Valencia. The Public Prosecution’s investigation resulted in figuring out six defendants … who had been introduced earlier than the court docket on expenses of smuggling antiquities and forging and utilizing official paperwork. The court docket sentenced them to jail.”

Magdy Shaker, the chief archaeologist on the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, instructed Al-Monitor, “The handover of the artifacts that had been smuggled to Spain got here after a serious and joint effort by the Egyptian ministries of International Affairs and Tourism and Antiquities, in cooperation with the Egyptian Public Prosecution and the judicial authorities in Madrid. These artifacts had been smuggled in a container, the suspects on this crime had been arrested, and all papers proving Egypt’s eligibility for these artifacts had been submitted.”

He stated that the recovered artifacts are of historic significance and embody a statue of the god Amun with the double feather crown and a gorgeous piece of the goddess Sekhmet. 4 Canopic jars had been utilized by the traditional Egyptians throughout the mummification course of, Shaker added.

He famous that “the restoration of smuggled and stolen Egyptian antiquities includes many procedures and issues and isn’t a simple course of. For instance, negotiations to get better the artifacts started with the Spanish aspect in 2014 and continued till the tip of this yr when Egypt’s eligibility was confirmed.”

He stated, “We face an issue within the restoration of some smuggled items as a result of some nations enable the commerce and show of artifacts in auctions, corresponding to England. Subsequently, if we don’t current the mandatory paperwork, they could be bought and we won’t be able to get better them. Different nations didn’t signal the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Pure Heritage, which obliges states to return stolen antiquities and to not promote them.”

In a assertion on Dec. 21, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities introduced the recovery of 5,266 artifacts from quite a few nations, together with the US, the Netherlands, France and Spain.

The ministry estimated that about 29,300 artifacts have been recovered from overseas since 2011, Shaaban Abdel Gawad, the supervisor of the ministry’s Division of Recovered Antiquities, instructed Egypt’s Al-Hayat channel on Dec. 11.

The chief archaeologist said that “earlier than 1983, it was permissible to commerce with artifacts, and international missions had the fitting to acquire 50% of the found antiquities. Some leaders got artifacts as items earlier than the issuance of Law No. 117 of 1983, which prevented the export and commerce of Egyptian antiquities.”

He added, “After the events of 2011, some artifacts had been stolen from the Egyptian Museum. Additionally, unlawful excavations are nonetheless ongoing, most just lately the invention of a cemetery within the Ain Shams in ​​Cairo a couple of days in the past.”

The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities had introduced in 2019 that 32,638 artifacts disappeared from its warehouses over the previous a long time.

Article 41 of the Egyptian Antiquities Safety Legislation stipulates that the smuggling of artifacts exterior Egypt is punishable by life imprisonment (25 years) and by a nice not exceeding 10 million Egyptian kilos.

Hussein Abdel Baseer, director of the Antiquities Museum at Bibliotheca Alexandrina, instructed Al-Monitor, “The [recovery] of the artifacts that had been smuggled to Spain is a good achievement for the Egyptian state as they symbolize a part of the Egyptian people’s history. That’s no matter their sizes and even when these artifacts are as tiny as a grain of sand.”

“The Egyptian authorities is making nice efforts and coordinating with quite a few nations to get better its smuggled antiquities. A number of days in the past, Israel returned quite a few artifacts to the Egyptian Ministry of International Affairs,” he stated.

On Dec. 9, Egypt obtained 95 artifacts from the Israeli authorities, which had confiscated them after they had been smuggled exterior Egypt.

He defined that the Egyptian authorities is working to get better quite a few artifacts, primarily the top of Nefertiti from the Berlin Museum, the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, the statue of King Ramses II from the Turin Museum in Italy, the Dendera Zodiac from the Louvre Museum, and the portrait bust of Prince Ankh-haf from Boston. He added that “these items include vital artifacts that Egypt should get better and placed on show in its museums, particularly with the inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum subsequent yr.”