Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry will hold on Monday a joint press conference with Dr. Ahmed Issa, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities in the presence of the charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Cairo to receive an Ancient Egypt coffin, known as “Green Coffin”, recently recovered by Cairo from Washington as part of an Egyptian plan to recover all smuggled antiquities.
The efforts of the Egyptian diplomacy succeeded in recovering an archaeological sarcophagus known as the “green sarcophagus”, a wooden coffin lid from ancient Egyptian times, which was smuggled out of the country illegally.
The lid of the sarcophagus is large, it has an exceptional size of more than three meters in length, it is made of wood covered with hieroglyphs.
Ambassador Hossam al-qawish, consul general of Egypt in Houston in America, received the lid of the green coffin, the so-called “Ankh in Maat”, which was in the possession of the Houston Museum.
The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities has finally announced the recovery of 29 thousand artifacts that have been smuggled to a number of countries over the past five years. Earlier, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the recovery of 16 artefacts from the USA.”
Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that the recovered items were smuggled out of the country illegally, which was proved by investigations conducted in America in three different cases.
The recovered items include six artefacts from the Metropolitan Museum, confiscated by the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan in the US city of New York.
The pieces include one of the fragments of a wooden coffin covered with a layer of colored plaster, showing the face of a lady, a limestone panel with hieroglyphic inscriptions, a bronze statue of a man kneeling on his knees, as well as other pieces
The Egyptian cabinet revealed in its statistics that Egypt has recovered 222 smuggled artefacts and 21,660 coins from several countries, stressing that the government represented by the Ministry of foreign affairs, justice and antiquities is making intensive efforts to restore stolen and smuggled antiquities.
Over the past five years, Egypt has recovered more than 660 items from France, Belgium, USA and Britain, in addition to 9 artefacts including statues and coffins from France, and 3 pieces from Germany after five years of smuggling.
The Egyptian embassy in Switzerland received 26 artefacts of different sizes and shapes that had been offered for sale on one of the websites, and 123 artefacts belonging to different eras of the ancient Egyptian civilization were recovered from Washington after the Ministry of Antiquities proved Egypt’s right to ownership of these pieces..
Months ago, the Egyptian prosecutor announced the recovery of 36 artefacts smuggled to Madrid from the Spanish authorities, while the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced weeks ago that it had recovered 16 artefacts from the United States.
