Who knew a country like Egypt could have so much history. Quite a few years ago, realistically thousands of years ago, Egyptians used a number of materials to create artifacts during their times. One of the more common materials used was stone or marble. I don’t know who thought it wouldn’t be noticeable, but they filled in pieces of stone that had been either stolen or gone missing with plaster. Apparently Lord Elgin thought this would be a brilliant idea. He wanted to make a couple of bucks so he would sell them to British museums thousands of miles away. These structures are called Parthenon sculptures. The Parthenon is very iconic to the Ancient World- it stands on the Acropolis of Athens. While there are still some remains of the Parthenon structure, most of the original friezes were taken to the British museum. It’s quite a miracle that some of the structure is still standing today. Below is an image of the West and South Friezes of the Parthenon. The West side illustrates the beginning of the Panathenaic procession. While less of the South side was preserved, it shows groups of horsemen. 
The West and South Friezes of the Parthenon, designed by Phidias, 447-32 BC, via The Acropolis Museum, Athens
While seeing the Parthenon Friezes are on the top on my bucket list, there are also several antiquities housed at different museums I would love to see. I think it would be cool to go on a trip museum surfing… similar to the concept of bar hopping but different. The bust of Nefertiti and the statue of Rames II are two of the more popular pieces. The Grand Egyptian Museum is set to open at some point in 2023, but will all their original antiquities be there? Will Egypt get to claim their artifacts as their own? There could be a long, continuous debate over that. This Falcon pectoral shown below will be one of the thousands of objects displayed from Tut’s tomb. I love the vibrant colors of it because it is very different from other sculptures of the time. Most were made of marble or stone while this consisted of mainly gold and some stones.
Falcon pectoral found in Tut’s tomb Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
The Rosetta Stone has a story of its own. Hawass, a famous Egyptologist, started a petition for all museums to return their Egyptian treasures back. According to them, the Rosetta Stone is “the icon of [our] Egyptian identity.” This got a little complicated as there are rules about returning artifacts… something about them being duplicates or unfit to be retained. Egypt had an easy route out of retrieving a lot of their illegally trafficked artifacts because they were documented. A lot of the stolen pieces ended up in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Back to the famous stone… it is actually a piece of a bigger slab of stone. Written on it was the decree about King Ptolmey V. It was written in three different types of writing: Demotic, Ancient Greek, and hieroglyphs. While it was fond broken, it featured fourteen lines of hieroglyphic script, 32 in demotic, and fifty-four in ancient greek. All which helped experts decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The image to the left is what still remains of the Rosetta stone, while the one on the right is a construction of what it would look like with all the pieces.
The Rosetta Stone and a reconstruction of how it would have originally looked. Illustration by Claire Thorne.
I would love to take y’all on a longer tour of some of the history of Ancient Egypt, but that will have to wait for another time. More and more about these artifacts and sculptures are being discovered daily, but we will always have questions.