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Ammon News - Four Egyptian artifacts proved to have been taken from the country illegally have been returned from Italy.

The items were recovered by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, represented by the Supreme Council of Antiquities at the headquarters of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the reclamation was part of ongoing efforts to preserve the heritage and civilizational history of Egypt.

Museum officials in Turin handed over the rare objects to the Egyptian Embassy in Rome.

Mostafa Waziry, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities thanked Italian authorities for cooperating in the return of the artifacts to their rightful home.

Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, supervisor of the council’s antiquities repatriation department, said the items included part of a wooden coffin lid decorated with longitudinal lines containing rows of hieroglyphic text, seized from the Sardinian city of Oristano in 2017.

Two small pieces of pottery depicting the upper part of a statuette of a woman, and a small vase from the Greco-Roman era, recovered from Genoa in 2018, were also among the artifacts.

And a 2.5-centimeter-tall djed pillar, recovered from Turin Museum, was received by the Egyptian Embassy on Nov. 14.

Abdel-Gawad said the four artifacts would go to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir for necessary restoration work to be carried out.

In September, Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities recovered 16 historic items from the US.

A ministry statement said: “This comes within the framework of the highest priority given by the state to the file of recovering smuggled Egyptian antiquities and returning them to the homeland.”

Arab News