SYDNEY, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said it was looking into allegations of tomb raids in the Middle East by an Australian national, now 95 years old, local media reported.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Joan Howard, who had been staying in the Middle East with her diplomat husband in the 1960s, lifted a collection of antiquities as she volenteered to work on dig-sites in Mideast countries including Egypt, Jordan and Palestine.
Joan Howard is accused of removing ancient weapons, jewelry, a funeral mask and other objects now said to be worth around 1 million Australian dollars (over 760,000 U.S. dollars),
Joan's husband, Keith Howard, was an Australian veteran of World War II who had served on the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization for over a decade in the region since 1967.
The matter came to light after she gave an interview to the West Australian newspaper on Nov. 4, displaying her collection.
"She used her diplomatic freedom to search for antiquities," the newspaper said.
The matter falls in a grey area as the law that prohibits the removal of cultural heritage articles from a country may not have been in place at that time.
Still, the "cultural theft" details revealed by the interview outraged many archaeologists. In an open letter to Australia's Ambassador to Egypt Neil Hawkins, Egyptian expert Monica Hanna said Howard has "broken all possible laws taking advantage of her diplomatic status."
"As an Egyptian citizen and an academic in the field of archaeology and cultural heritage, I demand that an investigation should be carried out on the sources of Mrs. Howard's collection now in Perth. These objects should be repatriated if found to have left Egypt illegally," Hanna wrote.
She also denounced the tone of the interview, calling it celebratory and boastful, and saying it could have negative and destructive influences considering the current situation of looting of archaeological sites post-2011.
"We need to counter the exact image Mrs. Howard has presented in her article for the safeguard of not only Egyptian heritage, but also world heritage in general," Hanna said.
In response, Egypt's foreign ministry contacted the Australian authorities to open an investigation, an official at the Egyptian Culture Ministry's Supreme Council of Antiquities said.
"We want to investigate how these pieces made it out of Egypt illegally," Shaaban Abdel Gawad told the Sydney Morning Herald.
The DFAT said Australia implements its obligations under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
"This includes the return of foreign cultural property which has been illegally exported from its country of origin and imported into Australia," a DFAT spokesperson told the Sydney Morning Herald.
