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Ahmed Abokor is product designer and creative consultant. He has spent most of his career in digital advertising and experiential design. He has a versatile and expressive approach to visual communication, specialising in visual identities and conceptual design thinking. In 2021, Abokor co-founded the virtual restitution project Looty with Chidi Nwaubani. Named after a dog taken from China and given to Queen Victoria as a gift, the project contributes to the charged conversations around restitution in a witty and anarchic way. Looty produces NFTs of looted objects in major institutions and sells them, with 20 percent of the proceeds going to grants for young African artists. Looty uses an entirely legal process that sends representatives into institutions to digitally capture looted artifacts, render them in 3-D, and create NFTs from them. The next stage of the project will be the building of a virtual museum in the metaverse to house the reclaimed artifacts, as well as expansions into augmented reality and merchandise. The hope is to extend the project globally, creating a family of digital looters to add to the virtual museum.
Affiliation(s): Looty AOK London
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Published Work: Looting Back History: How This Digital Project Reclaims Stolen Artifacts
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Zahi Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist and public official, whose magnetic personality and forceful advocacy helped raise awareness of the excavation and preservation efforts he oversaw as head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). Following a one-year postgraduate course in Egyptology at Cairo University, Hawass won a Fulbright fellowship and enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1987. He then returned to Egypt, where he was named general director of antiquities for the Giza pyramids complex as well as for the historical sites at Ṣaqqārah and Al-Wāḥāt al-Baḥriyyah (Bahariya Oasis). At Giza in 1990, Hawass discovered a necropolis that housed the tombs of the pyramid builders, which proved, contrary to then-popular fringe theories, that the pyramids were indeed erected by Egyptians. By the time he was appointed secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in 2002, Hawass was lauded for reclaiming Egyptology—for decades the province of Western scholars—for Egyptians. His zealous promotional efforts were seen to have engendered national pride and to have helped attract tourism. As head of the SCA, Hawass directed several other excavation projects that led to significant findings, including the discovery in 2008 of an Old Kingdom pyramid at Ṣaqqārah that was determined to belong to a queen of Teti. He also initiated the Egyptian Mummy Project, which used modern forensic techniques such as CAT scans to study both royal and nonroyal mummies. In 2009, facing mandatory retirement, Hawass was appointed Egypt’s Vice Minister of Culture, with responsibility for the SCA. Among his ongoing endeavours was the repatriation of several notable Egyptian artifacts from foreign museums, including the Rosetta Stone and the bust of Nefertiti. In July 2011 Hawass was one of more than a dozen government ministers removed from their posts in a cabinet reorganization meant to defuse widespread popular protests against the Egyptian interim government. In 2022, Hawass launched a renewed international campaign and online petition aimed at repatriating key ancient Egyptian artifacts from European museums. The campaign specifically focuses on three major items: the bust of Nefertiti, the Rosetta Stone, and the Dendera Zodiac.
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Dr. Monica Hanna, a prominent figure in the global Archaeology community, began her academic journey by studying Egyptology and Archaeological Chemistry at the American University of Cairo (AUC) in 2004. She furthered her education with an MA at AUC and a doctorate in archaeology at the University of Pisa, Italy. Her research, which delves into the spatial, cognitive, and identity aspects of archaeological sites, mainly focused on heritage’s diverse interpretations and influences on spatial and communal identities. Monica’s academic prowess was further honed as a post-doctoral fellow in the Topoi Cluster of Excellence in the Department of Egyptology and North African Studies at Humboldt University from July 2011 to November 2012. After 2011, Hanna has been working with the media and a group of volunteers to bring awareness to the plight of different archaeological sites in Egypt. She courageously spoke and defended the heritage of Egypt and its protection. Hanna has been granted numerous awards, including the SAFE Beacon Award for 2014, for her efforts in salvaging antiquities under conflict. She was also named by UNESCO the Monuments Woman of 2014. She has also received ‘Distinguished AUC Alumna’ twice, once in Cairo in 2014 and the other in New York in 2015. She founded the College of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in Aswan with several departments and a substantial cohort of students and professors. In 2020, Dr. Monica Hanna’s influence in Egypt was further solidified when she was selected as one of the 50 most influential women in the country under the auspices of the Egyptian Prime Minister. Her impact is also evident in her collaboration with the University of Oxford, where she was awarded a research grant as part of Action for Restitution in Africa. Her current research focuses on decolonizing archaeology, repatriation, and restitution amongst methods for accessibility to archaeology and heritage for the wider public, with a particular interest in digital humanities. In 2022, she and her research team launched the first public movement to repatriate the Rosetta Stone and the Bust of Nefertiti.
Affiliation(s): Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport
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Published Work: Repatriating Cultural Identity: The Egyptian Discontinuity Pretext; The Future of Egyptology
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Salama Moussa (4 February 1887 – 4 August 1958) was an Egyptian journalist, writer and political theorist who is lauded for having written/translated over 40 published books. While attending secondary school in Cairo, Moussa was exposed to writers such as Farah Antun, Jurji Zaydan, and Ahmad Lutfi Al-Sayyid that discussed modern and, at the time, radical ideas such as Social Darwinism, women's rights, and nationalism. He is credited for later popularising the idea of socialism in Egypt and for advocating for an egalitarian socialism where women's sovereignty was upheld. He was also an Egyptian Nationalist who championed unity amongst Egyptians, and called for the political and economic independence of Egypt from British occupation. In the 1920s, at the height of a cultural and literary renaissance in Egypt, he established the Egyptian Academy for Scientific Education. During this time he also participated in public debates around restitution, through his contributions to Al Ahram, where he called for the return of Egyptian cultural belongings as a matter of resistance to colonialism and reclamaition of identity. Following the closure of the academy by the government in the 1930s, he founded the magazine, Al Majalla Al Jadida,which was in circulation until the mid 1940s. In the 1950s he served as the supervisor of the science section in Akhbar el-Yom, a role he served in until his death in 1958.
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Taha Hussein (15 November 1889 – 28 October 1973) was a seminal Egyptian intellectual, writer, and educational reformer known as the "Dean of Arabic Literature". Despite losing his sight at age two, he became the first PhD graduate of Cairo University, and later became the first rector of the University of Alexandria. He was a leader of the Nahda (Arab Renaissance), advocating for modern education, secularism, and critical thought, and a proponent of Egyptian Nationalism. As Minister of Education (1950–1952), he famously championed free, universal education. In the 1920s and 1930s, Hussein made contributions to Al Ahram, where he drew attention to the exploitation and misrepresentation of Egyptian heritage by colonial powers, and called for the restitution of Egyptian belongings as anchors of national identity.
Affiliation(s): Cairo University University of Alexandria
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Louis-Georges Tin is a Martinican-French academic, gay rights campaigner, and anti-racist activist. Tin is noted for initiating the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia [now marked in over 130 countries across the world] and co-founding the Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN). In 2014, Tin was mandated by the former president of the African Union, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, to bring structure to the African Diaspora.The State of African Diaspora (SOAD) was established following the African Union's recognition of the diaspora as the continent's ""sixth region,"" and it collaborates with the Pan-African Parliament to foster development and unity. Tin serves as SOAD's Prime Minister. Under Tin's leadership SOAD has supported restitution efforts in Benin, Congo and Kenya.
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Lineo Segoete is an artistic research practitioner and cultural worker. With her creative roots in storytelling across various forms, her work is grounded in critical literacies spanning history and arts education. Her practice revolves around decoloniality, social justice and reparative cultural collaboration between academics and artists. She has worked within the cultural sector as co-director and co-founder of Ba re e ne re Literary Arts and as a steering committee member for the Pan-African arts research collective Another Roadmap Africa Cluster (ARAC). She is Managing Director and Curator at the Livingstone Office for Contemporary Art (LoCA) and one half of the ART.1.ST (Art First) consultancy in Lesotho.
Affiliation(s): A.R.T.1.S.T
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Dr Bulami Edward Fonyuy is a literary scholar and holds a PhD in Postcolonial Literatures, with a specialisation in Oral Literature. He is a member of the Nso community, and served as the Nso Cultural and Development Association (NSODA) Secretary General from 2009 – 2017. In this role he supported Sehm Mbinglo I – Paramount Fon of the Nso with drafting correspondence to various stakeholders in the Ngonnso restitution case. He also sensitised Nso community members and the general public – in Cameroon and abroad – to the issues surrounding the restitution of Ngonnso, especially through publications and presentations. He also actively mobilised Nso community members to participate in the fight for Ngonnso, as the ideator and main promoter of the annual Nso Cultural Festival. He remained actively involved in the more recent restitution efforts surrounding Ngonnso, as a cultural consultant for Ngonnso and a member of the entourage that accompanied the Fon of Nso to Berlin in 2022. Fonyuy currently lectures on Heritage and Restitution at the University of Bamenda, Cameroon. He also recently authored Colonial Disruptions on African Cultural Heritage: Documenting the Ngonnso Restitution Saga from 1902-2024; a deep dive into the challenges and possibilities of African restitution, based on his experience with Ngonnso.
Affiliation(s): University of Bamenda
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Published Work: Colonial Disruptions on African Cultural Heritage: Documenting the Ngonnso Restitution Saga (1902-2024) ; Restitution and Digitization of African Cultural Heritage:Time to Decolonize and Reconceptualize African Preservation Spaces.
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Mwape J. Mumbi, is a curator, writer, filmmaker, arts critic and independent researcher, originally from Kabwe and resident in Lusaka, Zambia. As an active member of the artistic, cultural and heritage community in Zambia, Mumbi is tapped into the network of people in these fields, who are critically engaging with the matter of restitution. His personal investment in realising the holistic restitution of Kabwe Man’s skull is intertwined with his long standing commitment to contribute to the self-affirming cultural reconstruction and strategic self-sustaining economic resuscitation of Kabwe, and Zambia as a whole.
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