Egypt is to lodge an official complaint with France over a statue showing a famed Egyptologist standing with his foot on a pharaonic head, a news report said Thursday.
The sculpture of Jean-Francois Champollion - who in 1822 deciphered the ancient Rosetta Stone hieroglyphs - has stood on public display in Paris for well over a century.
Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities said in a statement that the depiction "is harmful to the mutual cultural relations of Egypt and France," said the independent newspaper Al-Shorouk.
The offending statue of the famed scholar has been on display at the College de France in Paris since 1878, said an online report of the state-run newspaper al-Ahram.