CAIRO, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) — Egypt has recovered 13 smuggled ancient artifacts from Britain and Germany, as part of its efforts to protect cultural heritage and repatriate antiquities that were illegally taken from the country, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced on Sunday.
The artifacts have been retrieved in coordination with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry and in collaboration with the relevant authorities from Egypt, Britain and Germany, according to the statement.
The 13 pieces have been deposited at the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo for maintenance and restoration before being showcased in a special exhibition of recently recovered antiquities.
The pieces from Britain include a New Kingdom limestone funerary stela, a small red baboon amulet, a green faience-based vessel and a small blue faience funerary jar, both from the 18th Dynasty (1550-1292 BC), and a part of a bronze crown consisting of a feather, a cobra, and a ram, which was part of a large statue of the god Osiris dating between the 22nd and 26th Dynasties (945-525 BC).
They also include a beaded funerary mask from the 26th Dynasty (664-525 BC) and several faience and black stone funerary amulets.
The artifacts recovered from Germany include a skull and a hand from an unidentified mummy, and an ankh amulet, the ancient Egyptian symbol of life.
Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary-General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, stated that the recovery of the artifacts followed the London Metropolitan Police’s seizure and confiscation of them after confirming that they had been smuggled out of Egypt through an international antiquities network.
Regarding the artifacts recovered from Germany, Khaled pointed out that the Egyptian embassy in Berlin received a notice from the Hamburg city authorities expressing their wish to return a number of pieces kept in the city’s museum, after verifying that they had been illegally taken out of Egypt.
