The 3,000-year-old sculpted head of a statue of an Egyptian queen has been returned after being smuggled to Britain almost a decade ago.
The BBC said that the life-sized stone head -- believed to depict Queen Nefertari, the principal wife of Pharaoh Ramses II -- was returned along with six pieces of papyrus scrolls from the later Greco-Roman period.
The sculpture was stolen in 1992 from its storage place in Sakkara, a village 25 km south of Cairo, in what officials described as one of the country's biggest antiquities smuggling cases.
In 1995, a joint British and Egyptian investigation broke the smuggling ring and arrested fifteen people.
Earlier in July, a US court indicted an American antiquities dealer on charges of trading in stolen Egyptian artifacts, including the head of the Montahotep Statue, which he reportedly sold for $1.2 million.
The federal court in New York also accused Fredrick Sholtz, who owns a showroom for art and Oriental collectibles, of attempting to sell another ancient Egyptian statue for $825,000.
Should the dealer be convicted, he will receive a five-year jail term and a fine exceeding $250,000 – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
