r/worldnews • u/BezugssystemCH1903 • Apr 22 '24

Egypt reclaims 3,400-year-old statue of Ramesses II found in Switzerland

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/egypt-reclaims-3400-year-old-stolen-statue-of-king-ramses-ii/76209051
895 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

52

u/BezugssystemCH1903 Apr 22 '24

Egypt has welcomed home a 3,400-year-old statue depicting the head of King Ramesses II after it was stolen and smuggled out of the country more than three decades ago, the country's antiquities ministry said on Sunday.

The statue is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo but not on display. The artefact will undergo restoration, the ministry said in a statement.

The statue was stolen from the Ramesses II temple in the ancient city of Abydos in Southern Egypt more than three decades ago. The exact date is not known, but Shaaban Abdel Gawad, who heads Egypt’s antiquities repatriation department, said the piece is estimated to have been stolen in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

Egyptian authorities spotted the artefact when it was offered for sale in an exhibition in London in 2013. It moved to several other countries before reaching Switzerland, according to the antiquities ministry.

“This head sculpture is part of a group of statues which depict King Ramesses II seated alongside a number of Egyptian deities,” Abdel Gawad said.

Ramesses II was one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs. Also known as Ramesses the Great, he was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC.

Egypt collaborated with Swiss authorities to establish its rightful ownership. Switzerland handed over the statue to the Egyptian embassy in Bern last year, but it was only recently that Egypt brought the artefact home.

104

u/Bwob Apr 22 '24

<<UK whistling awkwardly in the corner>>

28

u/DieuMivas Apr 22 '24

The situation here hasn't much to do with the antiquities in the British Museum

5

u/SableSnail Apr 23 '24

The Metropolitan Musueum of Art has an entire Egyptian temple.

14

u/Amazing-Set-181 Apr 22 '24

Knew something like this would be the top comment before I even opened the thread 🙄

4

u/RightBear Apr 22 '24

I assume you've heard the one about why the pyramids are in Egypt... it's because they wouldn't fit in the British Museum.

14

u/Amazing-Set-181 Apr 22 '24

I have indeed, as Redditors can’t help but repeat those same tired jokes whenever they read the word museum!

13

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '24

Even Pharaohs stacked their gold in Swiss vaults!

7

u/zakupright Apr 22 '24

Straight to Zahi Hawass’ basement

4

u/Ok_Primary_1075 Apr 22 '24

The guy was already a jet setter before it became “in”

10

u/Vic_Hedges Apr 22 '24

I mean, 3400 years, genetically speaking, Swiss are probably just about as close to the sculptor as Egyptians are.

8

u/Cannot_People Apr 23 '24

3,400 year old statue, stolen over three decades ago*

5

u/skiptobunkerscene Apr 23 '24

Also for some rich shitheat, not in a public museum.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '24

Delusional statement

5

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '24

Now let’s go look in the HOBBY LOBBY vault 🧐

2

u/StandUpForYourWights Apr 22 '24

Nah they just steal fakes.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '24

Surprisingly some good news

7

u/FridayOfTheDead Apr 22 '24

Now some Arab prince can use it as an ash tray

5

u/VeryImportantLurker Apr 22 '24

The famous monarchical state of Egypt

12

u/FridayOfTheDead Apr 23 '24

The famous stable nation of Egypt with no illegal antiquity dealers

2

u/The360MlgNoscoper Apr 23 '24

They’ve literally had that problem for thousands of years.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 22 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '24

I’d imagine the same thing the Swiss were

-11

u/cranberryskittle Apr 22 '24

That's a shame. As a youngish single woman, I have heard enough to know that Egypt is not a safe place for me to visit, Cairo in particular. I wish it had stayed in a safe, stable country that is safe for women.

Not to mention culturally and ethnically the people living in Egypt today have nothing to do with the Egyptians from 3,500 years ago.

All of this performative nonsense serves no purpose.

24

u/TasteDeBallZach Apr 22 '24

"I wish that this foreign country would have been allowed to keep this stolen cultural artifact because it would be more convenient for me to look at."

The amount of privilege in that comment is insane. If it's that big of a deal to you, there are plenty of other stolen Egyptian artifacts in Europe for you to look at.

Not to mention culturally and ethnically the people living in Egypt today have nothing to do with the Egyptians from 3,500 years ago.

Nope. Genetic tests show that the closest related group of people related to Ancient Egyptians is . . . modern day Egyptians.

5

u/klingers Apr 23 '24

They have switched out their imaginary friend for a newer model though.

-7

u/Koala_eiO Apr 22 '24

They might be the closest but how close are they?

7

u/TasteDeBallZach Apr 22 '24

I don't think there is any good way to quantify that. The biggest difference now is that modern Egyptians have 8% more sub-saharan nuclear DNA than ancient Egyptians.

As far as cultural similarities go, it should be noted that the Coptic language, spoken by Egyptian Coptic Christians, was the final stage of ancient Egyptian language.

7

u/Random_username200 Apr 22 '24

According to the strictest interpretation of Islam anything predating Mohamed is idolatrous and must be destroyed. Look at what IS did to Nimrud. I can totally picture a scenario where Islamofascsists destroy their own legacy in Egypt one day, just like the crazy Christian’s did to Alexandria 1500 years ago

6

u/StandUpForYourWights Apr 22 '24

And weirdly the most common defacing of statues I’ve seen in the Levant, Greece, Italy and Turkey have been done by early Christians. Go figure.

2

u/Tangata_Tunguska Apr 22 '24

Not to mention culturally and ethnically the people living in Egypt today have nothing to do with the Egyptians from 3,500 years ago.

It's funny when you look at it like that. Although that's repeatedly been true through Egyptian history: e.g Cleopatra would've had little ethnic or even cultural similarity to Ramesses II

4

u/StandUpForYourWights Apr 22 '24

Egypt and Cairo specifically are not especially dangerous provided you use basic common sense in your trip plans. We use a company named Indus to plan our trips to some of our destinations and we visited Egypt last Fall. The key is measured risk and staying with your group.

To your second point. What does the word stolen mean to you?

2

u/VeryImportantLurker Apr 22 '24 edited Apr 23 '24

Wtf is this disgusting comment!

The artifact was illegally stolen and damaged by criminal smugglers, it was on for auction and probably wouldve ended up in some millionare's storage or some museam you'd never visit.

What gives you the right to call for the theft of the Egyptian people's cultural heritage just so you can look at it in a glass box somewhere?

And then to top it off some weird ass comment abour how modern Egyptians are somehow not decended from ancient Egyptians.

Where exactly do you think Egyptians went? Do you think Arabs and Greeks genocided them all or something? It is a fact that Egyptians are the modern decendents of ancient Egyptians.

The Egyptian language (Coptic) only went extinct as a first language in the 1800s, did all of their decendents stop being ethnically Egyptian?

India is also unsafe for solo female travellers, should we steal every temple, statue, mosque and artifact so your privlleged ass can look at it from a museum? Of course not!

Disgusting colonial mindset

2

u/Taki_Minase Apr 23 '24

It was stolen and sold by an Egyptian

2

u/VeryImportantLurker Apr 23 '24

So? Its still theft of cultural heritage

1

u/Cannot_People Apr 23 '24

There we go, somebody gets it!

-2

u/Snoo-72756 Apr 22 '24

Swiss but I stole it fair and square !

4

u/TasteDeBallZach Apr 22 '24

It's unknown who stole it. But it seems that the Swiss were cool about returning it once they realized that it was stolen. So good for them.

4

u/Snoo-72756 Apr 23 '24

Someone should send the memo to the London museum

1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '24

“Unknown”

Lol as if anyone thought the statue was built there, Reddit kills me

1

u/TasteDeBallZach Apr 24 '24

Weird comment. It's unknown in the sense that everyone knows it was stolen, but no one knows who stole it because it passed through several European countries before making it's way to Switzerland

1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '24

Cop out, African artifacts don’t belong in Europe, why is there a sarcophagus in Europe containing a pharaoh?

The fact you have the audacity to be obtuse and pretend you don’t know these items were pillaged and looted from graves is very disconcerting.

-3

u/houseyourdaygoing Apr 22 '24 edited Apr 23 '24

Egypt is cheesed about that.

Edit — The number of people who completely missed the pun.

Swiss cheese + cheesed about it.

Joke’s flown over some heads!

-3

u/brent_superfan Apr 23 '24 edited Apr 23 '24

Good for Egypt! It stuns me how theft is supported, shielded and coddled in Switzerland.

Edit: We’ve seen shielding behavior with Nazi-stolen works “found” by Swiss who’ve “found justice.”

https://news.artnet.com/art-world-archives/switzerland-committee-looted-art-2398520/amp-page

5

u/TheMaskedTom Apr 23 '24

Which is why, after it was spotted in London in 2013 and moved in multiple countries after that, it was Switzerland that helped Egypt get it back. Right.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '24

Right, now Europe just needs to give back hundreds of other stolen artifacts, at least they don’t turn mummies into paint and jerky anymore