The irony of the British complaining about Egyptians looting historical items of British national interest is great here.
Nice understatement.
Yeah. You just don’t leave live ordnance laying around.
You have to be kidding, British scientific archaeological excavations--dating into the 19th Century, and commonly called "looting" today (when artifacts were carefully cataloged by scientists, then taken back to the UK and safely kept in museums--instead of left to the black market which was all Egypt was at that time...), are a far cry from the REAL looting which has occurred (and continues to occur)of priceless historic sites in largely lawless Arab countries.
Witness the wholesale archaeological destruction of parts of the Temple Mount next to the Al Asqua Mosque at the hands of the Jerusalem Waqf. This is typical of the value Islamists have for other cultures of the past or real history.
But for European archaeologists "looting" Middle Eastern sites, entire civilizations of the ancient near east would be entirely unknown--and completely unappreciated.