CAIRO: Egypt wants to host a conference for countries demanding the return of ancient relics from foreign museums, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told AFP on Sunday.
Hawass, who has demanded the return of six priceless ancient Egyptian relics, said he had not yet set a date for the conference. We are preparing for this conference but we don t know the date yet, he said.
Greece, which wants the return of a collection of ancient Greek sculptures known as the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum, and Italy would be among the countries invited.
Hawass said Egypt wants back six artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone, a basalt slab inscribed with Greek and ancient Egyptian scripts that helped scholars understand Egyptian hieroglyphics.
The stele has been on display in the British Museum for more than 200 years. The museum has not indicated it would return the relic or loan it, as Hawass had also suggested.
Hawass, who says he has overseen the return of 5,000 Egyptian relics since becoming antiquities chief in 2002, has also demanded the handover of the iconic bust of Queen Nefertiti, which is kept in the Berlin Neues Museum.
The ancient bust was fraudulently spirited out of Egypt in 1913, according to Hawass. The museum, which is expected to send an official to meet Hawass this week on the dispute, insists the bust was taken legally.
In October, Hawass persuaded the Louvre Museum in Paris to return fragments from a 3,200-year-old fresco after he severed relations with the museum. The fragments were stolen from a tomb in the 1980s. -AFP
