It's Time to Save Egyptian Antiquities!

 

The repatriationists have largely ignored, Peter Tompa astutely observed, the wanton destruction of artifacts by extremists in the Egyptian Islamic Museum.   And no wonder.  The bombing of the museum along with last year's burning of an important library and looting of several museums offer precious little support for the proposition that "emergency import restrictions" and the like should be implemented to repatriate artifacts to Egypt, including ones long out of that country.

If anything, all this instead supports the proposition that important artifacts - particularly those from Egypt's pre-Islamic past -should be sent out of the country for safekeeping while duplicates of less important material are sold on the open market to raise funds to help protect the rest. Collectors and Museums in the United States, Europe and the Gulf States will gladly help save the past, as they have been doing for generations.   So let's all support the protection of Egyptian antiquities by seeing them safely out of Egypt as quickly as possible.  It's not rocket science.