Over the past 10 years, the Cairo government has managed to return to their homeland about 30 thousand artifacts that were illegally smuggled out of the country. This was announced on Saturday, December 11, on the air of the Al-Hayat TV channel, the chief inspector of the Department of Returned Antiquities of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities of Egypt, Shaaban Abdel Gawad.
“Since 2011, the Egyptian state has managed to return 29,300 artifacts. This year alone, 5,300 monuments of ancient Egyptian civilization were uncovered at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC, ”he said.
Abdel Gowad specified that all the artifacts smuggled out were registered in the archives. Department staff are currently working on their return to Egypt.
In particular, experts “track auctions around the world and sales on the Internet” through foreign and Egyptian sites, as well as social networks.
The chief inspector said that upon their return, cultural values are restored and then exhibited in museums.
According to him, one of the returned artifacts was an ancient human skeleton discovered in Belgium, which is now part of the exposition of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.
In 2020, the Egyptian authorities approached Interpol with a request to help find the bust of King Tut, sold at an auction in London. Auction house Christie’s held an auction on July 4, at which a bust over 3 thousand years old was sold for $ 5.97 million (about 680 million rubles). This caused discontent on the part of Egypt.
The Egyptian side also claims that the piece of art was illegally taken out of the Karnak Temple in Luxor in the 1970s. The head of Tutankhamun, depicted as the sun god Amun, was kept in a private collection and has not been auctioned since 1985. How the relic got to Europe is unknown.
In recent years, Egypt has been actively seeking the repatriation of antiquities illegally exported from the country at different times. According to the authorities, 95% of the smuggled antiquities are the result of archaeological research by “black diggers”.
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
