Rome: Stolen Bronze and Silver Coins Returned to Egypt

Today in Rome, at the headquarters of the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, in the presence of the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Salerno, Dr. Corrado Lembo and the Commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, Brigadier General Fabrizio Parrulli, the restitution order was executed in favor of the Ministry of Antiquities of the Republic of Egypt, represented by the Ambassador, HE Hesham Badr, by Prof. Mohamed Ezzat, Director Prosecutor at the Office of the Egyptian Attorney General, with whom there was full cooperation, and by Prof. Moustafa Waziry, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, relating to approximately 23.000 ancient bronze and silver coins of various types as well as 195 archaeological finds from the pre-dynastic to the Ptolemaic period, of inestimable value such as funerary masks, amphorae, pectorals painted on gauze, wooden sculptures, bronzes, Oshabti statuettes, sarcophagus lid, objects of clandestine excavation in southern Egypt.
The extraordinary recovery and consequent seizure, which occurred in May 2017, in the customs area of ​​the port of Salerno, by the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Naples, in collaboration with officials of the Customs Agency and the local Superintendency, originated from a customs check on a container, which apparently was intended for the transport of household goods only. All the finds, examined jointly by Italian consultants and experts from Egypt, were deemed to originate from the ancient city of El Miniya, 250 km south of the capital Cairo, where, in February 2018, the Egyptian Minister of Antiquities announced the discovery of an exceptional necropolis, containing a funerary complex, of over 1000 statues and 40 sarcophagi, likely dating back to between 672 and 332 BC. The restitution of the finds testifies once again to the fundamental importance that international cooperation has also for subsequent investigative developments.