SG1 nitpick .Possible Spoilers for Disclosure

[Osiris-RA]

I looked for a thread that included this topic, either I suck at searching or I couldn't find any.

What I'm wondering as I watch Disclosure today, (I actually hate that ep) is, If the StarGate was found in Egypt, shouldn't it be the Egyptian government that gets main control over the StarGate? The US has kind of taken it as their personal property and really, since it isn't really their tech anyway, why are they so nitpicky that they must be god over it? Whatever happened to sharing?

I'm trying to offend, just a question.

[furling]

you're trying to offend?????

It had something to do with the movie and how Americans found it, (catherine was american wasn't she??) Also what are the egyptians gonna do with it? they wouldn't have the resources, man power etc to do anything with it

[Osiris-RA]

Well, They could.

[spg_1983]

i was an archaeology student for a few semesters and this is something that came up. during the early part of the 20th century when eqyptology really took off, there were hundreds of artifacts that were taken from egypt by foriegn governments. a lot of them have been returned, but at the time there were no laws or treaties governing the removal of egyptian artifacts. i forget the year but it wasnt until arounf like 1940 or so that the treaty for the preservation of egyptian artifacts was signed and that treaty gaurunteed that any artifacts found in egypt belonged to the egyptian people and could only be removed from egypt with permision of the egyptian cultural ministry. the catch of the treaty was that it was not retro active, so any artifacts removed before that were not under the treaty so it was up to the foreign governments and museums whether to return them or not. incidentlly this treaty is also one of the reasons the egyptian government has gone out of its way to surpress research and finding indicating anyone other than the egyptian people had anything to do with the pyrimads and such. short answer: technically it could be considered the egyptians property if the US applied the treaty, but at the same time, it was built by the Ancients anyways so can anyone on earth actually claim ownership?

[Hatcheter]

And just to make matters more complicated, remember that the gate isn't even America's any more. It belongs to Russia, thanks to salvage rights. Really, you have to wonder whether the US mounted an operation to retrieve the gate, or salvage any part of the Asgard ship.

And if the Russians got the gate, did they get any of Thor's ship? Could they be retro-engineering their own space going technology from it?