Officials returned an ancient wooden sarcophagus to Egypt on Monday after determining it had been stolen from the country in 2008, AP News reported.
The ancient artifact, measuring 9.5 feet tall, lived at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences before investigators concluded it had been looted from the Abu Sir Necropolis and smuggled into the U.S. via Germany, AP reported.
The sarcophagus, which possibly belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, spanning an era that saw the last of the Egyptian pharaohs and Alexander the Great’s reign in 332 B.C., Mostafa Waziri, the top official at Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AP.
Looted sarcophagus returned to Egypt after being kept in US museum https://t.co/f2F4wAxMoa
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“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organized network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg said in 2008, AP reported.
“We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs,” he said, according to the outlet.
The sarcophagus’ return to Egypt is part of an effort led by the country’s government to prevent the trafficking of its stolen artifacts. Approximately 5,300 looted antiquities returned to Egypt from all over the world in 2021, according to AP. (RELATED: Archaeologists Discover 27 Sarcophagi In Egypt That Have Remained Unopened For 2,500 Years)
Bragg said the same party responsible for stealing this sarcophagus had previously smuggled a golden coffin out of Egypt that was eventually featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. The Met purchased the coffin from a Parisian art dealer for $4 million in 2017 and displayed it at the museum until it was returned to Egypt in 2019, the outlet reported.