Wrapping up smuggled goods

Al Ahram Weekly (Nevine El-Aref)

Six months after its establishment, the National Committee to Return Smuggled Antiquities has convened for the first time. Nevine El-Aref attended the meeting.

The Ministry of Culture and the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) have been at the forefront of a campaign since 2002 to stamp out the trade in artefacts illegally smuggled from Egypt and bring them back home. To put the campaign into effect, the SCA has created a new department in its administrative body, the National Committee to Return Smuggled Antiquities (NCRSA), to list all the objects that have been illegally smuggled out of the country together with those missing from archaeological storehouses and museums. It also traces all reports provided by Egypt's embassies and consulates abroad of possible infringements of the antiquities law, and from time to time it checks the sale catalogues of well known auction houses such as Bonhams and Christies.

By following these measures the SCA has succeeded in recovering 3,000 artefacts over the last six years. Of these, 619 items came from Heathrow airport in London, 398 from Geneva and two from Basel, seven statues from Italy, a unique, ancient Egyptian relief from Belgium, and others from the United States, Holland, Germany, France and Canada.