Egypt wants the Rosetta Stone back from Britain. Is now the time to heal "the wounds inflicted by colonial powers?"

CBS, bY AHMED SHAWKAT

Rosetta-stone-1242709868 — Visitors look at the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, August 24, 2022 in London, England.MIKE KEMP/IN PICTURES/GETTY

Cairo — More than 200 years after scientists decoded the Rosetta Stone, campaigners in Egypt have launched a petition calling on the country's leader to submit a formal request for England to return the iconic artifact to its home country. The campaigners argue the Rosetta Stone, along with 16 other artifacts that have been in the U.K. for centuries were removed from Egypt illegally, and it's time to get them back.

There have been many previous requests for the stone's repatriation, but Dr. Monica Hanna, an Egyptologist and member of the team leading the campaign, told CBS News she was confident that the new approach — seeking support from Egyptian, British and any other members of the general public — will succeed.

Dr. Monica Hanna, Acting Dean of the College of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, is one of the organizers of the "Repatriate Rashid" campaign.FACEBOOK/MONICA HANNA

"Previously it was the government alone asking for Egyptian artifacts, but today this is the people demanding their own culture back," Hanna told CBS News on Wednesday. "Definitely all these objects are going to be repatriated, it is just a matter of when."

In July 1799, a year after Napoleon invaded Egypt, the Rosetta Stone was discovered by chance in the Nile Delta city of Rashid. A French military engineer supervising digging at an old fort thought the stone looked special, so he sent it to Cairo for examination.