Kuwait Returns Smuggled Antique Back to Egypt
A coffin lid artifact was smuggled to Kuwait earlier this month from Egypt and was discovered hidden in a sofa that was shipped by a certified shipping company. Officers at the Kuwait Airways cargo terminal discovered the artifact as they were scanning the shipment.
The antique dates back to pharaonic times and is 170cm long. the statue is in the figure of a woman wearing an elaborate headdress and was carved from stone.
Sources from the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters of Kuwait (NCCAL) said that the antique will be sent back to Egypt if Egyptian experts of antiquity agree with their findings.
A Kuwaiti official announced that they will communicate with the Egyptian officials regarding the smuggled coffin soon and will return it back as a part of Kuwaiti efforts to face the illegal smuggling of antiquities from foreign countries.
Many Egyptian antiquities were smuggled in the aftermath of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, while others were stolen during the unrest in 2013. Egypt managed to retrieve over 500 artifacts from abroad in 2016, said Director General of the Retrieved Antiquities Department of the Antiquities Ministry Shaaban Abdel Gawad.
