Egypt gives Art Museum until May 15 to return prize artifact

by Tim Poor, Spring 2006 Gatekeeper Editor
Reprinted with permission of St. Louis Post-Dispatch

CAIRO, Egypt � Egypt's top antiquities official has renewed his call for the return of a 3,200-year-old mummy mask from the St. Louis Art Museum, saying he has given the museum's director a May 15 deadline.

Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said Monday that he wrote Museum Director Brent Benjamin on Saturday to provide proof the mask was stolen and to again demand its return.

"He said he needs more evidence. I sent him a photograph," Hawass said in a meeting Monday with editors from the U.S. "I told them they have until May 15."

Hawass was vague about what he intended to do if the mask wasn't returned but suggested he would disparage the museum in the art world.

"I will make their life hell," he said.

As of Monday evening, the Art Museum had not received the letter from Hawass, spokeswoman Jennifer Stoffel said.

Hawass first wrote to the museum in February, saying the mask - one of the museum's prize artifacts - had been taken from a storage room near the site where it was excavated in 1952. Hawass wrote the letter after Michael van Rijn, a self-appointed art watchdog, claimed the mask had been stolen but offered no evidence.

Benjamin has said the museum checked with Interpol and other agencies when it bought the mask in 1998 from an antiquities dealer and that the mask had not been reported stolen.

That didn't appease Hawass. "If I am the director of the museum, I would send someone here and see if what we're saying is true or not," he said.

David Bonetti of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2005 International Reporting Project. All Rights Reserved.