Egypt will request loan of artifacts

Egypt plans to seek the temporary return of some of its most precious artifacts from museums abroad, including the Rosetta Stone and a bust of Nefertiti.

The country’s chief archeologist, Zahi Hawass, said the Foreign Ministry would send letters this week requesting that the ancient artifacts be loaned to Egypt.

Hawass has previously demanded the permanent return of many of the artifacts, claiming some of them were taken illegally.

This time, the country is requesting museums loan the artifacts so they can be exhibited either at the 2011 opening of the Egyptian Museum, near the site of the Great Pyramids at Giza, or the Atum museum, which is set to open in the Nile Delta city of Meniya in 2010, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.

Egypt said it would request the loans from the British Museum, Paris’ Louvre, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and two German museums.

The Rosetta Stone, a 1,680-pound slab of black basalt with a triple inscription, was the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. It is one of the centerpieces of the British Museum.

“We have never received a written request to loan the Rosetta Stone,” British Museum spokeswoman Hannah Boulton said. “If one was put in, we would consider it.”