US gives ancient sarcophagus back to Egypt after ‘looting it years ago’

An ancient wooden sarcophagus has been returned to Egypt from the US (Credits: AP)

An ancient wooden sarcophagus featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after US authorities determined it was looted years ago.

Egyptian officials said the repatriation is part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities.

In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artefacts returned to Egypt from across the world.

Mostafa Waziri, from the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the sarcophagus dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, an era that spanned the last of the Pharaonic rulers from 664 BC until Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332 BC.

The sarcophagus, almost three metres tall with a brightly painted top surface, may have belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, though some of the inscription on it has been erased, Mr Waziri said.

It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony on Monday in Cairo by Daniel Rubinstein, the US charge d’affaires in Egypt.

It was returned at a a handover ceremony at the foreign ministry in Cairo (Credits: AP)

The handover came more than three months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office determined the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo.

It was smuggled through Germany into the United States in 2008, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L Bragg.

The coffin was stolen from Egypt and smuggled into the US in 2008 (Credit: AP)

‘This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organised network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,’ Mr Bragg said at the time. ‘We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.’

Mr Bragg said the same network had smuggled a gilded coffin out of Egypt that was featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum.

Mostafa Waziri, top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, takes a look with a magnifier (Credits: AP)

The Met bought the piece from a Paris art dealer in 2017 for about four million dollars (£3.3 million). It was returned to Egypt in 2019.

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Experts believe the artifact dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt