CAIRO—Egypt rejoiced as a 3,400-year-old statue depicting the head of King Ramses II returned home after being stolen and smuggled out of the country over three decades ago, announced the country’s antiquities ministry on Sunday.
The statue currently resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, although it is not on display. The ministry plans to restore this valuable artifact, as stated in a press release.
The statue was originally taken from the Ramses II temple in the ancient city of Abydos in Southern Egypt more than thirty years ago. While the exact date of the theft is unknown, Shaaban Abdel Gawad, the head of Egypt’s antiquities repatriation department, estimates that it was likely stolen in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
Egyptian authorities identified the artifact when it was up for sale at an exhibition in London in 2013. It traveled through several other countries before ending up in Switzerland, according to the antiquities ministry.
“This head is part of a collection of statues depicting King Ramses II seated alongside various Egyptian deities,” explained Mr. Abdel Gawad.
Ramses II, also known as Ramses the Great, was one of ancient Egypt’s most influential pharaohs. He reigned as the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt from 1279–1213 B.C.
Egypt worked in collaboration with Swiss authorities to confirm its rightful ownership. Switzerland returned the statue to the Egyptian embassy in Bern last year, but it was only recently that Egypt was able to bring this significant artifact back to its homeland.
