Egypt retrieves a 2,500-year-old stone relief from Bonhams

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Egypt said Monday that it retrieved a 2,500-year-old limestone relief from London after its sale was blocked by Bonhams auction house there because it had been looted from a pharaoh's tomb.

A team of Egyptian archaeologists traveled to Britain to retrieve the artifact, which bears hieroglyphic text engraved in six rows and a cartouche of an ancient Egyptian queen, according to a statement issued Monday by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It did not say when the carving was brought home.

The stone slab had been removed from a tomb discovered in 1969 in the Egyptian temple city of Luxor, the statement said.

A spokesman for Bonhams auction house in London confirmed that the relief had been listed for sale in May, but was withdrawn after experts discovered it had been looted.

Also reported on the International Herald Tribune.

The original article which I posted about this was back in May, on the Egypt Daily Star News website.