Four antiques from the time of King Amnehotep III will be returned to Egypt by the UK within days, said Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mohamed Abdel Maksoud in a statement on Saturday.
They were seized when an American amateur collector tried to sell them in London.
The pieces were up for sale in a specialized auction house when a British Museum trustee stopped the auction and confirmed that the pieces were genuine. A team of English, Egyptian and German researchers was formed to examine the artifacts, which proved their origin.
The pieces had been removed from the base of an ancient statue of Amnehotep III in his mortuary temple in Luxor, the statement said. It added that three are heads with Asian features and the fourth is a cartouche that belonged to the pharaoh.
Amnehotep III was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty, ruling Egypt from 1391 to 1353 BC, the statement added.
The statement said antiques authorities in Egypt are coordinating with the Egyptian embassy in London to set a date for transporting the artifacts.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
