The head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, wrapped up a two-day conference in Cairo for nations seeking the return of their valuable antiquities and artifacts. Hawass has made it his mission to track down Egyptian antiquities he believes were wrongly removed from Egypt and to bring them home.
While in Washington last month, Hawass beamed with pride when he accepted the return of an apparently smuggled ancient Egyptian coffin that a U.S. customs agent had intercepted at Miami airport.
"People can think that the best moment in the life of an archaeologist is actually to discover something," Hawass said. "But for me, the best thing is to return something to Egypt."
If that is the case, Hawass has experienced many best moments. By his count, he has overseen the return of 31,000 objects since 2002. Such artifacts are intercepted as they are illicitly smuggled across borders; some are identified as they are readied for the auction block; some are retrieved from the halls and walls of world-renowned museums.
Last year, France repatriated the last of five 3,000-year-old stolen Egyptian relics that ended up in the French Louvre museum. They were removed from a wall painting of an ancient Egyptian tomb in the 1980s.
To Hawass, each return is a victory, not just for Egypt, but for all mankind. "This is not our heritage," he said. "It is the heritage of the human being all over the world."
Ironically, that is the same argument made by those in the art world who oppose the idea of taking artifacts out of international museums and returning them to their places of origin.
