Stolen limestone relief repatriated to Egypt

The Ministry of Antiquities officially receives an ancient Egyptian relief repatriated from France.

Mr. Shaaban Abdel-Gawad (General Supervisor of Repatriated Antiquities Department) explains that the ministry spotted artefact through following the international auction halls. The newly repatriated relief was on display at one of Paris auction houses.  the ministry took all the necessary procedures to stop the sale and withdraw it from the auction.

The limestone relief is dated to 30th Dynasty, during the reign of King Nectanebo II (360 – 342 B.C). The relief was stolen from a temple at Saqqara necropolis during the 1900s, and it was published in an international scientific periodical.

It measures 44x50cm and weighs about 80kg. The relief depicts goddess Sekhmet carrying the sun disk on top of her head and a line of hieroglyphic writing that contains a cartouche of King Nectanebo II.

Abdel-Gawad said that the ministry has also received a collection of 44 small and medium size artefacts that have been seized at Charles de Gaulle airport in France It includes of cosmetic and jewelries containers made of beads, ivory, bone that can be dated to different ages from ancient Egyptian civilization but most of them go back to the Coptic era.

#Egypt #Antiquities #Repatriated #Egyptology 

Egypt will retrieve 239 artefacts from France in the next few days

A collection of 302 artefacts were smuggled to France after illicit digs. After they were seized by the French authorities, the Louvre museum experts examined them and validated the authenticity of 239 artefacts which France is returning them back to Egypt in the next few days.

Minister of Antiquties, Dr. Mamdouh El Damaty said that the ministry of antiquities claimed back also the other 63 objects which the French experts decided they were not genuine.  

Ali Ahmed, Director of the Repatriated Antiquities department, said “The artefacts are dated to different era of Ancient Egyptian civilization. They include; coloured wooden statues of sailors which were a part of a funerary boat model, a limestone tablet showing a scene of offering to Isis and Osiris as well as a number of amulets, Ushabtis, pottery and stone vessels beside Roman, Byzantine and Islamic coins.

 #Egypt #France #AncientEgypt

Second artefact to be returned to Egypt since the Revolution

A limestone stele of the Old Kingdom period (c. 2649-2134 BC), depicting a hunting scene from the daily life of its owner, is to be returned to Egypt by the Museum of Basel, Switzerland. The stele is 51 cm high and dates to the 5th Dynasty (c. 2465-2323 BC).

Photo courtesy: MSA (Ministry state of Antiquities)

The Museum is returning the artifact to Egypt later this week as part of the repatriation campaign of Dr Zahi Hawass, Minister of State for Antiquities (MSA), who, in 2002, when he was still the Secretary General of what was then the Supreme Council of Antiquities, threatened to cut scientific and research ties with any museums, universities or other institutions that held stolen antiquities from the country.
The Museum of Basel has volunteered to return this piece and has already sent back the eye of a colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III (c. 1390-1352 BC) found in 1970 at his funerary temple in Kom el-Hettan on the west bank of Luxor. The eye was smuggled out of the country, then loaned to the Museum by a private collector where it was recognized by an Egyptologist and returned to the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, in October 2008.
Dr Hawass will shortly be contacting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to arrange for a representative of the MSA to travel to Switzerland and collect the stele next week. The return of this object is also significant because it is the second artefact to be repatriated to Egypt from abroad since the Revolution.The first was limestone relief panel which was returned from Mexico (more details and pictures here)
Dr Hawass stated that the MSA is still continuing to pursue its campaign to repatriate stolen artifacts with determination and perseverance. In response to foreign criticism that the situation in Egypt is not safe enough for objects to be returned, Hawass pointed out that of the many museums in the country, the Egyptian Museum was the only one to suffer during the Revolution. The Museum was protected by a human chain of young people demonstrating in Tahrir Square and the one million tourists who were also in Egypt at the time all left the country safely too.
Hawass argued that if what happened in Cairo – that the police abandoned the streets for 4 hours on January 28, 2011 – had happened in any other city in the world, then there would be chaos, thefts and destruction on an even greater scale. Therefore he is still insisting that artifacts stolen from Egypt should be returned and added that many other pieces are due back soon from the USA.