Che dell'Egitto

"This spring the state apartments of Italy's presidential palace, the Palazzo del Quirinale, hosted a remarkable exhibit of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan artifacts, all of them found on Italian soil but held until recently in private collections and museums in the United States, notably the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The exhibit marked a diplomatic coup for Francesco Rutelli, the former mayor of Rome who until last April had served the left-wing government of Romano Prodi for two years as minister of culture. Through an arrangement of long-term loans and the deft application of diplomatic pressure, Rutelli had convinced museum directors that returning these artifacts, all of them acquired from dealers whose methods were not entirely scrupulous, would help to discourage the knowingly illegal looting of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan sites in Italy."

Read the New Republic article here.

The rest of the planet has to return every Italian artifact that doesn't pass the Italian dodgyness test to Italy?

If the answer is Si! Then do Italian museums have to return Roman antiquities that were made in other parts of the Roman Empire to the nations that now exist there?

If Si, then Italy better start packing the 13 Egyptian obelisks that are now part of Rome. The "dealers" who brought those pieces to Rome did so by force.

Newsflash: Cairo is clearing out some spaces for them!

Every Greek vase back to Greece? But do Greek museums have to return Cypriot antiquities to Cyprus?

Does every dodgy mummy have to find its way back to Egypt?

I know what Richard Pryor would have said.