500 and counting
Egypt's smuggled and stolen artefacts continue to make their way back home.
Nevine El-Aref reports
Another batch of looted and smuggled artifacts made their way back to Egypt earlier this week. The ancient pieces include a clay vase, a faience necklace and a limestone relief inscribed with a silhouette of a man and hieroglyphic text.
According to Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Secretary-General Zahi Hawass, two of the items were originally in the possession of an American citizen, who bought them from an auction hall in London 15 years ago. When this person "found out that Egypt was serious about getting its looted and illegally smuggled antiquities back, he offered to repatriate his ancient Egyptian collection to its homeland".
The third item, the limestone relief, was among the objects that were confiscated as part of the high profile case involving antiquities trader Frederick Schultz, who was arrested eight years ago on charges of stealing and smuggling Egyptian antiquities. After a long trial and appeal process, a US court finally ended the saga by finding Schultz guilty.
Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said another item, the Behbit Al-Heggara relief, was also scheduled to come home next month. The relief, which was removed from a wall of the Behbit Al-Heggara temple in Gharbiya governorate in 1990, had been up for auction at the world famous Christies' auction house two years ago. The sale was stopped upon a request from the SCA.
The SCA is tracking a number of other items being marketed by several European auction halls at present, said Ibrahim Abdel-Meguid, who heads the council's antiquities retrieval department. Abdel-Meguid said the SCA plans to demand that these items be returned to Egypt.
Five hundred stolen artifacts, 311 of which were found in Switzerland, have been repatriated by the department since its establishment in 2002.
