For decades, Egyptians have dreamed of bringing back some of the glories of their ancient civilization, which are scattered in museums and private collections around the world.

Now, as Cairo prepares to open “the world’s largest archaeological museum” at the foot of the Giza Pyramids in November, Egypt’s former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass told AFP that he will soon have three of his largest lost archaeological sites returned Treasures will demand:

The basalt slab from the year 196 BC. was the key that helped French linguist Jean-Francois Champollion crack the code of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The stone was discovered in 1799 by Napoleon Bonaparte’s invading French army while troops were repairing a fort near the port of Rashid (or Rosetta) in the Nile Delta near the Mediterranean Sea.

It contained excerpts from a decree written in Ancient Greek, an ancient Egyptian folk script called Demotic, and hieroglyphs.

Comparing the three writings eventually helped solve a puzzle that had puzzled historians for centuries.

Champollion announced his discovery on September 27, 1822.

The stele has been housed in the British Museum since 1802, inscribed ‘Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801’ on one side and ‘presented by King George III’ on the other.

Egypt has been demanding its return for decades, with Egyptologist Heba Abdel Gawad saying the inscriptions alone are “an act of violence that no one speaks about and which the British Museum denies was the destruction of an artifact.”

The museum told AFP the stone was “given to the British as a diplomatic gift”.

The bust of Pharaoh Akhenaten’s wife, whose name means “The beautiful one has come”, was made around 1340 BC.

The depiction of one of the most famous women of antiquity later found its way to the Neues Museum in Berlin.

Cairo was already demanding its return in the 1930s, but Germany long believed it was handed over in a partial colonial-era deal that allowed countries that funded archaeological digs to keep half of the finds.

But for Hawass, it was “taken illegally.”

Egyptologist Monica Hanna told AFP that Germany once agreed to return the bust just for Adolf Hitler to block after the Nazi leader fell under his spell.

“The Egyptian government,” according to the three European museums, has not received any official requests for the return of the treasures.

Egypt’s Supreme Antiquities Council did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

The sky map was blown up in 1820 by order of French official Sebastien Louis Saulnier from the Hathor Temple at Qena in southern Egypt.

It has hung from a ceiling in the Louvre in Paris since 1922, while a plaster cast stands in its place in the temple.

The map, described as “the only complete map we have of an ancient sky,” is believed to date from around 50 BC.