Egypt recovers cover of wooden ancient coffin smuggled to Kuwait

CAIRO – 8 October 2018: The Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait received on Monday, Oct. 8, the cover of the wooden ancient coffin, which was smuggled to Kuwait on March 1.
The officials at the Egyptian Embassy are currently carrying out shipment procedures of the coffin to send it to the Department of Recovered Antiquities at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities.

In this regard, Egypt's Ambassador in Kuwait Tarek el-Koni thanked Kuwaiti authorities, the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters Kuwait, the General Administration of Customs, Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry, and the Antiquities Department for their cooperation to send the cover back to Egypt.

Kuwaiti General Administration of Customs and Kuwait International Airport seized the cover of a wooden ancient coffin among an air cargo coming from Egypt, and a tripartite committee confirmed that it is an archaeological piece.

Since 2017, the Ministry of Antiquities has seized and restored many ancient artifacts.
Previously, Egypt received 118 ancient Egyptian artifacts that were smuggled to Italy, according to Egyptian General Prosecutor Nabil Sadek.

The statement of the general prosecutor affirmed that authorities of Cairo International Airport received the artifacts returning from Italy.

Italian prosecution in Salerno, Italy, agreed to return to Egypt the smuggled artifacts that the Italian authorities seized in Naples, Italy, in May.

This came in response to Egyptian prosecutor-general's request to Italy to bring back the ancient Egyptian artifacts.