Calls for Britain to return one of ancient history’s most important treasures as colossal museum opens in Egypt

It bears a decree issued in 196 BC, inscribed in three languages: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script, and Ancient Greek.

It provided the key to modern scholars for deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which had previously been unreadable for centuries.

Academics argue that the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Cairo strengthens the case for the return of the Rosetta Stone to Egypt.

It has been kept at the British Museum since 1802, where it is one of the most popular exhibits.

Costing £910million, the GEM, which will house more than 100,000 items in an area the size of 70 football pitches, officially opened on Saturday.

Dr Monica Hanna, Dean of the Arab Academy of Science and Technology, said they were “taken under a colonialist pretext” and should be repatriated because “the GEM gives this message”.

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She told the BBC: “On the occasion of the inauguration, Egypt should start asking officially for the restitution and repatriation of the different objects that were looted in the 20th and 19th century.”

Her call has been supported by Dr Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former minister of antiquities.

The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799 near the town of Rosetta (modern-day Rashid) in the Nile Delta by soldiers of Napoleon’s French army.

Britain acquired the piece as a war prize following the French forces’ defeat in Egypt in 1801.

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The transfer of the stone was a condition written into the surrender agreement between the British, French, and Ottoman generals.

Egypt has several ongoing campaigns and debates for the repatriation of several prominent ancient Egyptian artefacts housed in foreign museums, arguing for their return to their country of origin.

In addition to the Rosetta Stone, the Bust of Nefertiti is housed in the Neues Museum in Berlin, and the Dendera Zodiac is displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Prime ministers, presidents and royalty descended on Cairo on Saturday to attend the spectacle-laden inauguration of a sprawling new museum built near the Pyramids to house one of the world’s richest collections of antiquities.

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The inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, marks the end of a two-decade construction effort hampered by the Arab Spring uprisings, pandemic and wars in neighbouring countries.

“We’ve all dreamed of this project and whether it would really come true,” Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly told a press conference, calling the museum a “gift from Egypt to the whole world from a country whose history goes back more than 7,000 years.”

Spectators including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gathered late on Saturday before an enormous screen outside the museum, which projected images of the country’s most famous cultural sites as dancers in glittering pharaonic-style garb waved glowing orbs and scepters.

The British Museum houses one of the world’s most significant collections of Egyptian antiquities, containing over 50,000 artefacts.

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Established in 1753 and welcoming visitors since 1759, the institution held Egyptian pieces from its earliest days.

Records exist for approximately 38,000 items, representing 70 per cent of the holdings.

Egypt’s colonial era from 1882 to 1956 saw the most substantial influx of artefacts, with over one-third of the museum’s Egyptian items arriving during British rule.

The early 1900s marked the collection’s most rapid growth, with 7,406 artefacts added between 1900 and 1910.

The year 1904 alone saw the museum’s largest single Egyptian acquisition, with 2,160 pieces entering the collection.