4 Middle-Kingdom, Roman artifacts return home from UK

CAIRO – 24 May 2017: Four ancient Egyptian antiquities that ha d been smuggled from Egypt have returned home from the U.K, according to a Tuesday statement by the Ministry of Antiquities.

The smuggled antiquities include a glass sculpture of a head that had been stolen from El-Qantara storehouse during the 2011turmoil, and a Roman artifact that potentially belongs to the Antinopolis archeological area, also known as Sheikh Ebada, in Upper Egypt’s Minya governorate. Both antiquities were detected in an auction in England.

A wooden 16.5-centimeter ushabti, an ancient Egyptian funerary figurine, had been smuggled from Aswan, Upper Egypt, during another wave of turmoil in 2013. The ushbati, which bears gilded writings, is believed to belong to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.

Another recovered antique is a fragment of a stone stela from Hatshepsut temple that had been smuggled in the 1970’s.

“A committee comprised of members of the Egyptian Museum were assigned to retrieve the antiquities and place them in the museum,” said Shaban Abdel Gawad, the general supervisor of the Retrieved Antiquities Department of the ministry.

Other Egyptian antiquities have been recently retrieved from Belgium, France, and the United States and have also been placed in the Egyptian museum.