Cairo, Egypt ? Egypt announced Wednesday it was launching a campaign for the return of five of its most precious artifacts from museums abroad, including the Rosetta Stone in London and the graceful bust of Nefertiti in Berlin.

Zahi Hawass, the country’s chief archaeologist, said UNESCO had agreed to mediate in its claims for artifacts currently at the British Museum, the Louvre in Paris, two German museums and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Several countries have waged uphill battles to get back pieces they contend were looted by Western museums. Most notably, Greece has been seeking for decades the return of the Parthenon’s Elgin Marbles from the British Museum.

The pieces Hawass said Egypt wants returned are among the prized icons of European museums.

The Rosetta Stone, a 1,680-pound slab of black basalt with a triple inscription, was the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. It has been a major draw for London’s British Museum, which attracts 5 million visitors a year.

The same holds true at Berlin’s Egyptian Museum and its bust of Nefertiti. The 3,000-year-old bust has become a symbol of ancient beauty with its depiction of the queen’s delicate neck, elegantly arched brows and towering blue headdress.

The British Museum has long refused attempts by Greece to regain the Elgin Marbles. A museum spokeswoman, Hannah Boulton, said Wednesday it had not received any request from Egypt for the Rosetta Stone and the museum would only comment when it got one.

Hawass told journalists in Cairo he proposed two weeks ago that UNESCO lead negotiations with the museums and the agency agreed. Egypt’s Culture Ministry is backing the request, he said.

“This time we are very serious because we asked UNESCO” to intervene, Hawass said.

Egypt considers the artifacts stolen, he said. “We believe that Rosetta Stone didn’t leave Egypt legally. It was taken through imperialism,” he said.

He said Egypt was also seeking the elaborate Zodiac ceiling painting from the Dendera Temple, now housed in the Louvre; the statute of Hemiunu – the nephew and vizier of Pharaoh Khufu, builder of the Great pyramid – in Germany’s Roemer-Pelizaeu museum; and the bust of Anchhaf, builder of the Chephren Pyramid, now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.