The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza has reignited requests for the return of the famous Rosetta Stone, one of the main finds stolen in the colonial era and now preserved in the British Museum in London. The stele, discovered by the French during the Napoleonic Wars and given to the English in the 19th century, is probably the most famous archaeological artefact ever taken from an invaded country, thanks to its fundamental role in deciphering hieroglyphics. Yet, this is but one of many precious, sacred and culturally relevant objects stolen over the centuries especially by European powers in Asia, Africa (probably the most plundered continent of all), Oceania and the Americas, and even in Europe itself: a famous example of intra-European thefts are the Parthenon marbles, again brought to the United Kingdom during the domination of Greece, but Italy itself has also seen many works of art stolen and redistributed in museums around the world.
The former Egyptian minister of tourism and antiquities, Zaha Hawass, said in recent days that the time has come for Western European museums to “make amends” by asking for the return of three priceless pieces in particular: the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum, the Zodiac from the Louvre and the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin, all stolen during the colonial period.
The need to return artefacts stolen in the colonial era has for years been one of the central topics in the cultural field at a global level: another very famous case is that of the Benin bronzes, stolen in Africa and “distributed” in various European museums, including the British one. To give an idea of the scale of the phenomenon, the British Museum alone has something like 70,000 artefacts looted from the African continent.
But why is it that in cases where it is certain that the artefacts have been stolen there is no obligation to return them? There are different justifications that different countries give as reasons: for example, the British Museum is bound by the British Museum Act of 1963, which imposes strict limitations on the return of objects. This same act has often been cited in discussions of the Parthenon Marbles, taken from the Acropolis in the early 19th century.
Other countries instead choose to stall, periodically postponing discussions on restitution or contesting some thefts as “not clearly demonstrable”. More often, long-term loans are agreed (such as the forty artefacts lent in 2024 to the government of Uganda by the University of Cambridge) in the hope on the one hand that the artefacts will then remain at home, and on the other to formalize their possession through the loan. For this second reason, the Parthenon categorically rejects what it defines as “loans of its assets”.
In other cases, the stolen precious objects cannot be returned because they have been incorporated or transformed into other artefacts at a later time: this is the case of the precious materials set in the royal jewels of half of Europe. For example, in the jewels stolen from the Louvre there were sapphires from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), diamonds from India and Brazil, pearls from the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and emeralds from Colombia.
However, not all European countries refuse to meet the requests of victims of thefts: in 2021 the Dutch government agreed to develop “guidelines” on the return of colonial-era objects, and over the years there have been small but significant examples in this direction. However, the slowness and partiality of these interventions remains at the center of the debate, even becoming a video game (called Relootedi.e. “re-looted”) which allows its players to carry out missions that consist of breaking into museums around the world and recovering objects stolen in Africa and then bringing them back.
