Repatriation of Egyptian ‘Green Coffin’

It was one more step as Houston Museum of Natural Sciences in the United States returned to Egypt a wooden coffin of what is believed to be remains of a priest called Ankhemaat, who is believed to have belonged to a period between 664 Before the Common Era (BCE) and 332 BCE when Alexander of Macedon invaded the country. It has come to be known as the ‘Green Coffin’, and it was smuggled out of the country in 2008 by an international network of smugglers of antiquities. A Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had determined that it was smuggled out of Egypt and into the US through Germany. It was stolen from Abu Sir Necropolis near Cairo. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, “A precious piece of Egypt’s history was recovered after cooperation with our friends in the US, and after efforts that lasted for several years.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said, “This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organised network that has looted countless antiquities from the region. We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.” He also pointed to another gilded coffin that the same smuggling network stole from Egypt, and the New York Metropolitan Museum purchased from a Paris art dealer for US$4 million in 2017. It was returned to Egypt in 2019. The Metropolitan Museum returned another 16 pieces to Egypt after it was established that they were smuggled antiquities.

Egypt is trying to collect many of the artefacts connected with its ancient past scattered across the museums in Europe and America as a way of boosting its tourism, which is a huge foreign exchange earner for the country. The Egyptian government has been demanding the famous Rosetta Stone, now with the British Museum, which has been helped to decipher the hieroglyphics of the ancient period.

One of the negative legacies of the colonial period has been the shifting of antique pieces from Asian and African countries to Western museums and private collections, by virtue of the fact that the colonial governments had ruled or controlled in these countries. And most of the Asian and African governments and other voluntary groups in these countries are demanding that the antiquities taken from these countries should be returned. It should not come as a surprise if large sections of Western museums were to be emptied out if these demands are met.

It is indeed a fact that many of the valuable ancient artefacts in the African and Asian countries were lying in a neglected state, and they would have probably disappeared if the Western antiquarians who were researching into ancient history of Asia and Africa were not spending time and money to reconstruct the history of those times. And these Western antiquarians did carry away these valuable pieces of history to their own countries, but they had done invaluable service through the passionate interest into the distant past of these people.

It is the revived consciousness of ancient history among the decolonised countries that has made the scholars and governments in these countries understand the value of the antiques scattered in different parts of the West. And this has given rise to the demand for the return of antiquities from Western countries. It can be argued that one of the reasons that the Europeans have been able to dominate the Asian and African countries because the people in these countries did not value their own resplendent past, and therefore did not realise their own worth. But now the situation has changed. There is the growing consciousness in countries like Egypt about the value of their own ancient history.