Egypt receives rare sarcophagus lid recovered from the US
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Egypt recovers rare sarcophagus as part of a memorandum of understanding between the United States and Egypt.
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Egypt receives rare sarcophagus lid recovered from the US.
Egypt recovers an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus lid from the United States on Monday.
The green-painted lid is believed to belong to a prestigious state official in ancient Egypt's late period and weighs nearly 500 kilograms, Egyptian officials said.
The recovery of the prized relic is part of a memorandum of understanding signed between the governments of the United States and Egypt in 2016 and 2021 to combat the illegal trade of smuggled cultural products, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said at a news conference.
"Recovering this green sarcophagus and bringing it back to the country is a new step in the success of the foreign ministry to protect Egypt's national heritage. It is a reflection of the spirit of cooperation between Egypt and the United States in the field of protecting cultural products and recovering smuggled artifacts," Shoukry said.
Egypt has recovered nearly 29,300 smuggled artifacts over the past ten years, Shoukry added.
Read next: 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifact from Europe seized in Tennessee
In June last year, prosecutors in New York confiscated five Egyptian antiques from the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an international trafficking investigation involving the former director of the Louvre Museum in Paris.
According to the Manhattan district attorney's office, the artifacts, which include a series of painted linen fragments dated between 250 and 450 BC and portraying a scene from the Book of Exodus, are worth more than $3 million.
