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July 21, 2003
The Rosetta Stone is fine where it is, thanks
A demand has been made for the British Museum to turn over the Rosetta Stone to authorities claiming to speak for Egypt:
"If the British want to be remembered, if they want to restore their reputation, they should volunteer to return the Rosetta Stone because it is the icon of our Egyptian identity," said Zahi Hawass, director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo. He has begun negotiations with the museum.
"Otherwise I will have to approach them using a different strategy . . . the artefacts stolen from Egypt must come back."
The Flea is at a loss to imagine what this "different strategy" might be. World-class blow-hard Zahi Hawass does not say and his position on the question of Egyptian antiquities appears to diverge from his recent pretence to espouse the cause of a global "shared" archaeological heritage.
The Rosetta Stone is so named as it was pillaged from near the town of Rosetta in the Nile Delta by the occupying forces of Napoleonic France. It passed from French to British scientific custody as a spoil of war and has been displayed at the British Museum in London for just over two-hundred years. The stone formed part of an unremarkable public proclamation of the Ptolemaic government of Egypt some twenty-two hundred years ago. It is remarkable for the sole reason that this final Egyptian dynasty was an off-shoot of Alexander's occupation and thus were Greek-speaking. The proclamation was consequently written out in Greek, Demotic (a cursive form of Eyptian) and heretofore untranslatable heiroglyphs. The inscription is therefore credited as one of the keys to opening up the thousands of years of Egyptian history nearly erased by Islamic conquest.
The current government of Egypt is a crypto-fascist gangster state supported in large part by a danegeld provided by the American tax-payer. Its representatives cannot claim to speak for the Egyptian people of today let alone for those of ancient days. Even if Egypt was a democracy and the Egyptian people were free, however, I would still oppose a logic where blood and soil represent a claim to antiquities. Visits to the British Museum were formative in my childhood and an almost daily pilgrimage in two-years of research and writing at the famous round reading room of the British Library. The Rosetta Stone represents an important part of my British upbringing and is no less iconic to my identity than it is to underpinning fascist-romantic nostalgia to justify the salaries of Egyptian apparatchiks. More important, the Flea believes archaeological artifacts represent a shared heritage and shared responsibility of science as a whole even if Hawass' claims to that effect are self-serving and selective. The Rosetta Stone is fine where it is.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 21, 2003 10:12 AM
Comments
I have to say I feel the same way about the Elgin Marbles (or whatever they're calling them these days). The presentation at the British Museum is splendid, and I'm (selfishly) much more likely to be in London than in Athens and have the opportunity to see them.
Posted by: *** Dave at July 21, 2003 05:56 PM
I have never been a fan of classical Greek scupture and spend more time in the Near Eastern or Egyptian galleries when I am at the BM. But the Elgin (so called "Parthenon") Marbles are a centre-piece of the collection and - unlike the Rosetta Stone - were purchased from the government of the day. While it is possible the British Museum has no particular claim to them I do not see that the current Greek state-entity has any better claim. Considering the state of any classical architecture left behind in Athens I think our collective heritage is better served by leaving the Marbles where they are.
Flea-favourite Christopher Hitchens has a book-length treatment arguing for there return to Greece. I have not got round to reading it yet.
Posted by: Nicholas Packwood at July 21, 2003 07:22 PM
I am glad that someone is finally confirming my long-standing theory that Zahi Hawass is nothing but an arseclown extraordinaire.
Posted by: Paul Jané at July 22, 2003 10:54 PM
The Rosetta Stone should belong to England.
Posted by: Michael Melen at September 30, 2004 09:10 AM
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