Second Guessing

has started in the archaeological blogosphere on the government's handling of the Ka-Nefer-Nefer forfeiture case.   The consensus from the experts associated with the repatriation lobby appears to be that the government should have brought a criminal case against the dealer rather than a civil forfeiture case focused on the museum's ownership of the piece.  But all this misses the point.  The US taxpayer should not be footing the bill at all on such stale claims.  If the Egyptian military dictatorship really believed it had a claim, our courts our open to it and one would think these experts would be only too willing to help the generals to pursue an action.