The Rosetta Stone: Egyptian cultural property at the British Museum

Mohammad Alkhateeb

‘The Rosetta Stone’, Image by Andre Olavo Leite - Copyright Holder ‘Hans Hillewaert’, 21 November 2007 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rosetta_Stone_-_front_face_-_corrected_image.jpg

The Stone

It is just over 200 years since Jean-François Champollion’s address to the ‘Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres’ in Paris where his audience witnessed the announcement of a historical achievement, as, using the Rosetta Stone, Champollion was able to decipher the hieroglyphic system of writing, and with that a realm of opportunity for the study of Egyptology was conceived as it provided humanity with access to the Ancient Egyptian Language.

The Rosetta Stone is said to be ‘literally the foundation stone of Egyptology’. For over 200 years this jewel of ancient history and linguistics has been housed between the walls of the British Museum. Reuters had reported in 2022 that Prominent Egyptian Archaeologists had called for the Rosetta Stone to be returned to Egypt.

Ancient History

The Stone, originally forming one part of a larger monument, is inscribed with the Third Decree of Memphis as ordained by Egyptian Priests in Memphis as a glorification of Ptolemy V’s reign following his victory over a fighting force of indigineous Egyptians, who had mounted a violent rebellion against Hellenistic rule. The Decree is inscribed on the Stone with the same statement being made in three languages respectively, Egyptian hieroglyphic, Egyptian Demotic and Ancient Greek. Through his knowledge of Ancient Greek and the Coptic language (a descendant of older Egyptian languages), Champollion was able to decipher Hieroglyphics.

With the realm of opportunity provided by ‘the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone…which allowed ancient Egyptian texts to be translated for the first time in approximately 1,500 years’, we had witnessed with the discovery of the Stone and the ensuing scholarly endeavours ‘the birth of Egyptology as a scientific discipline’. Thus, it is unsurprising that the Stone is described as ‘one of the most famous artefacts in the world’ and ‘the institution’s (the British Museum’s) biggest attraction’, ‘a symbol of universality’ and ‘the ultimate emblem of translation, of the transcendence of barriers of language and understanding’.

The modern history of the Rosetta Stone

‘Soldiers, from these heights 40 centuries look down upon you’ uttered Napoléon Bonaparte in his pursuit of glory in Egypt when his army, advancing towards the fierce Mamluks, gazed upon the Great Pyramids of Giza in the distance. Napoléon’s conquests were profoundly political and strategic in their aims, yet in Egypt those had led to advancements in the fields of science and Egyptology. Amongst the most notable advancements and discoveries was the Rosetta Stone, found in 1799 near the town of Rashid (Rosetta/Rosette) in Egypt by French Army Officer Pierre Bouchard.

Upon orders by General Menou, the mysterious stone was transported to Alexandria, remaining in the possession of the French military until its seizure in 1801 by British Soldiers arriving with Admiral Nelson’s Fleet. It was a year later, in 1802, that the Rosetta Stone traversed the gates of the British Museum where it remains to our day. It was not before 2005 that the British Museum confirmed the institution’s supposed legal title[1] over the Stone, a claim rooted in its interpretation of Article 16 of the 1801 Capitulation/Treaty[2] of Alexandria which saw the transfer of the stone from the French army to the British army.

Appropriation and Repatriation under International Law

The Treaty provides that ‘the Arabian manuscripts, the statues, and the other collections which have been made for the French Republic, shall be considered as public property, and subject to the disposal of the generals of the combined army’[3]. Public international law governs a treaty’s legitimacy and applicability. In particular, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 (VCLT) is the principal legal authority governing international treaties. This means that the VCLT governs how treaties come into being, what renders them legitimate and enforceable and it governs various other considerations around how treaties work.

The treaty further stipulates that ‘a treaty does not create either obligations or rights for a third State without its consent’. The Articles of Capitulation had been signed by the Ottoman High Admiral and commander of the Ottoman forces in Alexandria as well as the Mameluke Ruler of Egypt. Neither of those were considered sovereign Egyptian leaders or representatives, but rather a non-native, colonial administration. As officials of the Ottoman state, their political control over the Egyptian territory was one of a colonial nature and not therefore a product of Egyptian social and political processes. Egypt was a third state, without a say or involvement in the treaty, with the Ottoman representatives illegitimately purporting to represent that third state. The Ottoman Empire was a collaborator in the appropriation of Egyptian cultural property, rather than an authorised proprietor ceding control.

Although the treaty does not operate retroactively and therefore cannot be the basis to invalidate the Treaty of Alexandria, it is not necessary to resort to conventions or legislative texts to deduce that accepting a party as a fellow signatory to an inter-state treaty forms a de-facto acceptance of the legitimacy of said party to speak for the territory. Therefore, the continued recognition of the Treaty is a continuing belief that Egypt’s sovereignty is under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire, an entirely foreign power to Egypt. Whether viewed in this century or in the 19th, there is no doubt that the signatory purporting to sign this document in Cairo’s stead was indeed an occupying force, one which had no political nor legal mandate to sign the treaty in question, meaning that it is not a legitimate ground for the British Museum to make a claim of legal title over the Rosetta Stone.

More pertinently to cultural property and the law surrounding that at the time of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the Treaty of Westphalia enacted rules in international law that forbade the plunder of cultural property in war, rendering the hitherto tolerated custom of plunder no longer tolerated and its rejection a new pillar of international customary law[4]. Quatremère de Quincy describes that moment in history as one where the ‘cultivation of the arts and sciences, combined with the true theory of the sacred rights of humanity and of the political relations of the nations’ was given priority over ‘the Roman rights of conquest’ until the latter’s revival by the French Republic.

By virtue of that long period of adherence, the illicit status of plunder was thereby an integral component of international customary law governing this matter. Following the French Revolution, ‘it was widely assumed that plundering foreign cultural property was questionable behaviour’. It is therefore evident that the appropriation of the Rosetta Stone had been in contravention of international law as it stood at the time, rendering it an unlawful act.

This position is supported by a number of statements made by contemporaneous figures. A corps of Swedish diplomats had claimed that the acquisition of artefacts from Ottoman Greece had contravened the international convention in the regulation of archaelogy. These statements demonstrate that not only had there been an abstract understanding of an unenforced illegality of plunder and looting, but that states and their representatives had understood that to be a binding principle of international law at the time.

Lord Castlereagh had determined in 1815 that Napoleon’s plunders ran in contravention of ‘every principle of justice and the usage of modern warfare’, urging that all cultural property plundered by France should be repatriated. The Duke of Wellington equally articulated in 1815 that cultural property looted must be repatriated because the plundering committed by France contravened the fundamental rules of law and ethics of war. Those statements had been made a mere 13 years after the arrival of the Rosetta Stone to the British Museum.

Of significance is the fact that those contributions represent statements of law made by representatives of the British state, expressing their understanding of international law as it stood at the time. This would indicate that the British Museum is asserting a supposed legal title despite the Rosetta Stone having been extracted from Egypt unlawfully and brought to Britain unlawfully.

Thus, the joint agreement between France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire had merely been a treaty between occupying forces who had conspired in the plunder, looting and appropration of Egyptian cultural property in contravention of international law and common political understandings of international law in the early 19th century, laws and principles of international law which had manifestly been accepted and understood by representatives of Great Britain at the time.

Final thoughts

It is clear that the Rosetta Stone was appropriated unlawfully and had been extracted from the Egyptian territory in contravention of international law at the time of appropriation. This is because the signatories of the Treaty of Alexandria had all been occupying forces at the time of signing, rendering them subject to international customary law which forbade the looting and plunder of cultural property and its extraction from its territory of origin. The British Museum’s claim to a legal title over the Rosetta Stone is without legal basis, because its appropriation and arrival to the Museum had been in clear contravention of international law at the time of appropriation as well as political recognition of said international law, particularly in Britain.

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[1] In property law, a person having legal title over something (land or other forms of possession) means that the person is considered in law to be the rightful owner of that land or other form of possession.

[2] A treaty is a text which is signed by international parties, usually two or more states, which amounts to an agreement to take on obligations or refrain from certain acts. It is an international agreement. When conflict comes to an end, it is normal for a treaty to be signed. Treaties and their enforcement are matters of public international law.

[3] The wording of the Article contains some ambiguity. Despite its origin in what is now an Arabic speaking country, the Rosetta Stone is not Arabian, for it pre-dates the arrival of the Arabs into Egypt by approximately 1000 years. Although the wording distinguishes ‘statues and the other collections’ where the word Arabian does not immediately precede those categories, the Article beginning with the phrase ‘Arabian manuscripts’ may lead to an interpretation where statues and collections are an extension of this class.

 This raises questions surrounding the applicability of the treaty if indeed it is construed that statues and other collections are an extension of the manuscripts which are specifically ‘Arabian’, whereby the adjective would equally be associated with the statues and other collections meaning the Article would apply specifically to Arabian statues and other collections of Arabian origin.

 Nevertheless, this is unlikely to be the conclusion made in this case, particularly as an Oxford comma is used to demarcate other collections in the form of ‘, and the other collections’. This means that the Articles of Capitulation, in this segment at least, were carefully drafted to incorporate all collections of any nature that came into the possession of the French military during their campaign in Egypt, which naturally include the Rosetta Stone.

[4] Customary International law is a set of legal principles which are not codified in a legal text, but a set of accepted practices rooted in ordinary practice in the international sphere. Those can be binding, depending on the circumstances. Violations of accepted customs in international relations can be considered transgressions of international law, even where no legal text exists to support the existence of a transgression.