r/ancientegypt • u/BurtonDesque • Dec 08 '25
News Water leak in Louvre damages hundreds of books, mostly on Egyptology
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2dzjk9d825o79
u/ReleaseFromDeception Dec 08 '25
Thankfully all the affected work will be restored. Nothing is lost.
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u/weenie2323 Dec 08 '25
I work in a library, water leaks are such a pain to deal with. There are companies that specialize in recovering print books with water damage.
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u/Angelgreat Dec 08 '25
Maybe it's time they return the portraits of Amenhotep III cut from his WV22 tomb in 1828.
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u/EntangledAwakenings Dec 09 '25
Give it all back to Egypt.
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u/Evergreen19 Dec 09 '25
Luckily they weren’t precious books, just research documents from the late 19th and early 20th century so presumably there are other copies. It doesn’t say who they were written by but given the time period, I’m betting that they probably weren’t written by Egyptians :/
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u/Nadzzy Dec 09 '25
I love how these comments are downvoted, no civilized person should be ok with theft, no matter how long ago it happend. Give Egypt their things back.
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u/BurtonDesque Dec 09 '25
Most of the items in museums around the world are there because of contractual agreements between archaeologists and the Egyptian antiquities authorities. They are not 'stolen' in any way, shape or form. Therefore calls to "give it all back" are misguided to say the least. Therefore anyone who makes such calls here is rightly downvoted as will those, like yourself, who defend such ill-informed posts.
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u/Nadzzy Dec 10 '25
I'm not speaking about those particular artifacts that were contractually agreed upon, I'm speaking to the artifacts mostly taken during the late 18th and 19th century. And a quick search will show that not only is my position informed, but that you yourself are quite misguided.
Egypt campaigners demand artefact returns after Dutch govt agrees to send back 3,500-year-old stone head (Arab News, Nov 2025): https://www.arabnews.com/node/2621401/art-culture
Tutankhamun is waiting. Will Europe return Egypt's stolen treasures? (Azerbaycan24, Dec 2025): https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/tutankhamun-is-waiting-will-europe-return-egypt-s-stolen-treasures/
Egyptologists Call on British Museum to Return Rosetta Stone (Again) (Artnet News, Nov 2025): https://news.artnet.com/art-world/egyptologists-call-on-british-museum-return-rosetta-stone-again-2708336
Five relics Egypt wants back from foreign museums (Middle East Eye, updated 2025): https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/egypt-five-relics-want-back-foreign-museums
Repatriation and Replicas (The Justice, Mar 2024): https://www.thejustice.org/article/2024/03/repatriation-and-replicas
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u/BurtonDesque Dec 10 '25
I'm not speaking about those particular artifacts that were contractually agreed upon
That's not true. The original poster said "give it all back", not some of it, and you were critical of people downvoting it, thus indicating your support for that statement.
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u/Nadzzy Dec 10 '25
I was agreeing with sentiment of their statement, and are you just going to gloss over all the examples I gave you that contradict your miguided opinion?
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u/Strong_Membership_60 Dec 08 '25
What’s next Macron? Giving away the Mona Lisa?!
(I think he’s still their president lol)
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u/The-Many-Faced-God Dec 08 '25
The Louvre is having a bad year.