Later this month, Egyptian Antiquities will be repatriated from USA

During his visit to the United States, Minister of Antiquities has finished the procedures to repatriate 8 ancient Egyptian objects were seized by New York customs in 2011 in an attempt to smuggles them into the USA.

Egypt has proven its right to repatriate them and they will be back in Egypt during this month beside another 3 objects still negotiating about them in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The objects are clearly a result of illicit digs in different sites.” Minister Said.   

The seized Antiquities include a wooden coffin lid bears coloured inscriptions and shows a woman wearing a wig and representation of winged Goddess Nut beside the decreased with different Gods. The 186 cm height coffin dated back to the Third Intermediate Period (Ca. 1070- 712 B.C)
 

Also two mummies linen plastered and hold coloured paintings include winged scarab beetle carrying the sun disc as well as hieroglyphics inscriptions show the babe of the deceased. 

The objects include Mummy cartonnage dated to Third Intermediate Period as well as models of wooden boats dated back to the Middle Kingdom and limestone statues some of which are dated back to the Third Intermediate Period and other dated back to Late Period.

Wooden sarcophagi and other antiquities to be repatriated from the USA

Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim said today "Ministry of Antiquities managed to prove Egypt's right to retrieve a number of antiquities dated back to different eras of the Egyptian history which were seized at New York City customs in 2011 while trying to smuggle them into the United States."

The Minister added " Once we were informed, legal procedures were taken in cooperation with the Egyptian embassy in New York and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prove our right to repatriate them to Egypt. Now we are completing the process to receive the objects and bring them back in the near future."

The artefacts are; a wooden sarcophagus for a Lady dated to late period beside another Graeco-Roman coffin.

There are also a number of Middle Kingdom wooden boats statues beside a number of limestone statues, some of the dated to the Third Intermediate Period and others dated to Late Period.

Those objects are most likely to be found during illegal excavation at different sites.

Four bronze statues were retrieved, 2 of them were stolen from the Egyptian Museum

In co-operation with the Armed Forces, the Police seized 4 objects (4 bronze statues) which were suspected to be stolen from the Egyptian Museum.

Dr. Zahi Hawass formed a committee headed by Dr. Tarek El awady (Curator of the Egyptian Museum) to check the objects’ authenticity.

2 of the 4 statues are of Osiris and two of Harpocrates (Harpocrates is the god of silence. Harpocrates was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptian child god Horus. To the ancient Egyptians. The Greeks conquered Egypt under Alexander the Great, they transformed the Egyptian Horus into their Hellenistic god known as Harpocrates).

In his report to Dr. Zahi Hawass, Dr. El awady has confirmed that 2 of the retrieved objects are genuine and was stolen from the Egyptian Museum collection while the other two still checking if they are genuine and source if it was stolen from a museum or any other site.

The two objects that were confirmed authenticity are

1)     Bronze Striding Statue of Harpocrates Wearing the Andjety Diadem

Catalogue #: JE 67925      Height: 18.00 cm

2)     Bronze Standing Statue of Osiris

      Catalogue #: JE 22040      Height: 37.20 cm

The retrieved objects are in generally good condition except the looters scrapped the registration numbers of them to hide the original source.

Photographs will be posted later