ADDIS ABABA, Nov 30, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - France on Saturday began the return of
some 3,500 archaeological artifacts to Ethiopia, which Paris held since the
1980s for study.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot handed over two prehistoric stone
axes, called bifaces, and a stone cutter to Ethiopia's Tourism Minister
Selamawit Kassa, during a visit to the national museum in Addis Ababa.

The tools are "samples of nearly 3,500 artifacts from the excavations that
were carried out on the Melka Kunture site", a cluster of prehistoric sites
south of the capital that were excavated under the direction of a late French
researcher, Barrot said.

France and Ethiopia hold a longstanding bilateral agreement on cooperating in
the fields of archaeology and paleontology.

The artifacts, currently stored at the French embassy in Addis Ababa, will be
delivered in their entirety to the Ethiopian Heritage Directorate on Tuesday.

"This is a handover, not a restitution, in that thes objects have never been
part of French public collections," Laurent Serrano, culture advisor at the
French embassy, told AFP.

"These artifacts, which date back between 1 and 2 million years, were found
during excavations carried out over several decades at a site near the
Ethiopian capital," he added.