The Egyptian embassy’s bid to buy a 4,500 year-old statue once on display in Northampton and save it being lost forever overseas is “gallant” but “unethical”, according to a Northampton action group.
The Sekhemka statue was sold in 2014 by Northampton Borough Council.
Now the Egyptian embassy is mounting a bid to buy it.
On March 29, the temporary export ban on the Sekhemka statue, imposed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) will be lifted.
It means the mystery Qatari buyer who spent more than £15 million on the ancient Egyptian artefact at an auction in 2014 will be able to take the statue overseas - unless a party swoops in to buy it before then.
Last week it emerged the Egyptian embassy was trying to stump up funds to do just that, saying if it were successful it would loan Sekhemka to the British Museum for six months of the year and would keep it in Cairo for the rest.
But the Save Sekhemka Action Group says the Egyptian bid - led by ambassador Nasser Kamel - is unethical because it could set a dangerous precedent.
Chairman of the group Gunilla Loe said: “The Sekhemka Action Group has noted the gallant appeal by the Egyptian Ambassador to wealthy Egyptians asking them to raise funds to repurchase Sekhemka.”
But she went on to say: “However, the Save Sekhemka Action Group maintains that such a repurchase would be unethical and unhelpful since the statue should not have been sold in the first place.
“We also believe that a repurchase would send strong signals to other museums and institutions that selling a valuable artefact would be acceptable, since there would be the expectation that there will always be somebody who would stump up the cash to repurchase it.”
Source: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/ ... -1-7283447
