Officials mentioned the 9.5-foot coffin was trafficked into the U.S. by a community accountable for looting “countless antiquities” out of Egypt.
CAIRO, Egypt — An ancient picket sarcophagus that was featured on the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago, Egyptian officers mentioned Monday.
The repatriation is a part of Egyptian authorities efforts to cease the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artifacts returned to Egypt from internationally.
Mostafa Waziri, the highest official on the Supreme Council of Antiquities, mentioned the sarcophagus dates again to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, an period that spanned the final of the Pharaonic rulers from 664 B.C. till Alexander the Great’s marketing campaign in 332 B.C.
The sarcophagus, virtually 9.5 toes tall with a brightly painted high floor, might have belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, although among the inscription on it has been erased, Waziri mentioned.
It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony Monday in Cairo by Daniel Rubinstein, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Egypt.
The handover got here greater than three months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office decided the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo. It was smuggled by means of Germany into the United States in 2008, in accordance to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg.
“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organized network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Bragg mentioned on the time. “We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.”
Bragg mentioned the identical community had smuggled a gilded coffin out of Egypt that was featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Met purchased the piece from a Paris artwork supplier in 2017 for about $4 million. It was returned to Egypt in 2019.
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