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Louvre returns stolen Egyptian artefacts

December 23, 2009 Edition 2

CAIRO: Five ancient Egyptian paintings have been returned to Cairo, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass announced yesterday, after Paris's Louvre museum agreed to send them back.

The 3 500-year-old paintings, from the tomb of a nobleman near the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, were stolen some time after 1975 and were acquired by the Louvre in 2000 and 2003.

Archaeologists from Germany's Heidelberg University in January notified Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities that the stolen paintings were at the Louvre.

"I believe returning these artefacts to Egypt is a good example to show that any museum that buys stolen artefacts will have an immediate reaction against it," Hawass said in a statement yesterday.

"Any museum that buys stolen artefacts will receive this same treatment."

Cairo had cut relations with the Louvre over the paintings, but French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week symbolically returned them to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at a ceremony in Paris.

The announcement came amid a dispute over a 3 300-year-old bust of the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, now housed in Berlin's Neues Museum.

Hawass said on Sunday he would formally request the bust's return to Egypt this week.

Hawass said documents presented by Friederike Seyfried, the director of Berlin's Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, proved the bust was taken from Egypt fraudulently.

Seyfried disputes that reading of the documents.

"The acquisition of the bust by the Prussian state was lawful," she said.

Seyfried was in Cairo on Sunday to discuss future co-operation, including shared exhibitions and an exchange programme for conservators, she said.

The Berlin museum has not ruled out the possibility of lending Nefertiti to Egypt for a fixed period. - Sapa-dpa