CAIRO: The Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni announced on Thursday that Egypt restored 25,000 pieces of antiquities from Britain, some dating to the middle of the Stone Age, 200,000 B.C. Hosni said that “some of the pieces date back to the middle Stone Age, while other pieces date back to the pre-civilizations period and prehistoric era and of the dynasties from the 7th Millennium to the 3rd B.C.” The pieces arrived on Wednesday to Egypt on board on an Egyptian plane in 85 boxes. For his part, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, said that “these memorials are the basic building block of the establishment of a museum for the monuments of the prehistoric eras in the city of Naqada in Qena, Upper Egypt, which is considered one of the oldest centers of civilization in the world.” He added that some of these monuments would be shown to the visitors in the prehistoric era center in Farafra oasis in el-Wadi el-Gedeed governorate, “which is considered the only center that gives information on the importance of prehistoric civilizations in the Western Sahara.” Hawass told reporters that “we had a long way to go in order to restore [the artifacts], through talks that were started with the University of London, a year before the University's decision to repatriate such monuments and artifacts to us.” He continued: “this brings the number of artifacts that Egypt recovered since I took the post of Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, 31,000 artifacts and is expected to increase during the coming years.” BM
