Egypt retrieves 2 smuggled artifacts from Italy

CAIRO – 29 April 2021: Egypt's Ambassador to Rome Hesham Badr received on Thursday two artifacts that had been smuggled to Italy in 2019.

Those are a pot and a statue embodying the bust of a woman. Both are made of pottery and belong to the Greco-Roman era.

The two pieces were not exhibited in museums or put in antiquities stores affiliated to the Supreme Council of Antiquities, but they were stolen as a result of clandestine excavation.

Over the past years, Egypt has been working through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Antiquities to recover such pieces.