Sunday, February 19, 2006

More on the St Louis Mask

http://tinyurl.com/bsyg7 (St Louis Today)
"A top Egyptian antiquities official is demanding the St. Louis Art Museum return the museum's mummy mask amid allegations that the mask (one of the museum's most prized antiquities) was stolen from Egypt in the late 1980s. In a letter dated Feb. 14, Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, writes that the 3,000-year-old mask was 'clearly stolen' from a storage room near the site where it was excavated in 1952 . . . . Hawass, who could not be reached for comment, threatened in his letter to contact Interpol if the museum does not begin returning the mask within two weeks. The museum bought the mask in 1998 from an international antiquities dealer for $499,000, and museum Director Brent Benjamin said that the museum at the time checked with Interpol, a stolen art registry and the director of the Cairo Museum to ensure the piece wasn't reported stolen. And, while the museum has great respect for Hawass' Supreme Council of Antiquities, Benjamin wrote that the museum wants proof, including copies of inventory listings and notations when the mask was first reported stolen."
See the above page for the full story.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

.. From the article written by the St.Louis said that ''Even if the work is found to have been stolen, it may not necessarily have to be returned to Egypt. The museum could work out a long-term loan with the Egyptian authorities comparable to the deal the Metropolitan Museum is negotiating with the Italian government over objects in its possession that turned out to have been illegally exported from Italy''I think St.Louis here wanted to use a power to claim this Golden mask which is legally to theirs,and which I think they may eventually claim as their. I will suggest the Eygptian art museum take a quick action to reclaim this historical mask back.And any individual or group found to have being the BAD GUY in this matter should be given necessary legal punishment due to anyone who commitedan act of selling a product which is not legally his own.
Thank you