Washington's sulphurous Bible museum returns thousands of missing antiquities to Egypt

It is a drop of water in an ocean.

Ten years after the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and after several years of negotiations, the Museum of the Bible in Washington has just returned to Egypt nearly 5,000 ancient objects that had disappeared from the country's collections in the wake of the revolution of 2011.

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Consisting mostly of papyrus, Egyptian and Coptic manuscripts from antiquity and the Middle Ages, the lot returned to Egypt this week would also include "

funeral masks, parts of coffins and heads of stone statues

" , according to the person in charge of the file of the returned parts quoted by AFP.

All the objects were entrusted to the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

Announced Wednesday by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the restitution was carried out with the logistical support of the American government, after the discovery in the collections of the Museum of the Bible in Washington of several thousand Iraqi and Egyptian objects of uncertain provenance. .

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A fraudulent exit from Egypt

The number of antiques returned by the only Bible museum in Washington is cause for concern about the extent of trafficking in the 2010s, these 5,000 objects constituting only a tiny part of a colossal flow of antiquities fraudulently removed from the market. 'Egypt.

The theft and destruction of antiquities had multiplied during the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and then in the following years, especially at the time of the 2013 coup against President Mohamed Morsi.

Read also: Theft of antiquities in Egypt: the brother of a former minister sentenced to 30 years in prison

After many hard knocks, the international fight against this fraudulent trafficking has intensified in recent years and has led - with the help of Interpol - to the arrest and then the conviction in 2020 of an Italian diplomat as well as of the brother of 'a former finance minister of Hosni Mubarak.

The two organizers of a smuggling ring were arrested while trying to dispose of more than 21,000 items on the Italian peninsula.

In addition to Egyptian antiquities, the Museum of the Bible is also in the process of returning more than 8,000 terracotta objects to Iraq for which "

there was not enough reliable information on their provenance,

" in the words. by Steve Green, the founder and president of the museum.

Items which, in all likelihood, have also been the subject of illegal trade.

Read also: An American decoration store returns antiques illegally imported from Iraq

Already in 2016,

The Atlantic

recalled that the recent increase in the collection of biblical antiquities amassed by Steve Green must certainly have been based on looting carried out in the Middle East, in particular by Daesh.

A lack of discernment for which the billionaire was fined by the US tax authorities in 2017.

In addition to stolen cultural goods, the illicit trade in antiquities sees circulating an innumerable quantity of objects discovered during clandestine excavations and looting which no longer limit themselves to the Middle East.

A veritable archaeological disaster propelled by online sales, this “

blood antiques

” market

now constitutes a considerable financial windfall on a global scale to the point of appearing, in 2020, in third place of illicit trafficking in terms of volume, behind those of drugs and weapons.

A trade to which unscrupulous galleries and museums continue to contribute.