Australia returns 122 items to Egypt

Ahram Online (Nevine El-Aref)

After a decade of lying hidden in storehouses at auction halls in Melbourne, Australia, a collection of 122 ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman artefacts is to return to Egypt on 5 November.

An archaeological mission led by Ahmed Mostafa, director general of the Retrieved Antiquities Department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), travelled early Friday to Melbourne to receive the items which are now at the Egyptian embassy in the city.

Mostafa told Ahram Online over the telephone interview before leaving that the recovered objects were on show at the Mossgreen Auction hall’s catalogue. They vary from miniature amulets to larger bronze statues, are from the Neolithic and Greco-Roman eras, dating from about 146BC to 415AD.

When the SCA found about the planned sale, Mostafa explains, it contacted the Egyptian embassy in Melbourne and, through diplomatic channels, Egypt managed to secure the collection.