The antique had been taken by an American national from a tomb at the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in 1958.

    The piece has been retrieved almost 50 years after its disappearance, said Dr Zahi Hawwas, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

    Hawwas said Egypt restored the antique after Jack A. Graves, a professor at the US University of California, sent him a letter in which he explained how he had got the antique.

    In his letter, the American professor said one of his friends had given him the piece before he died recently.

    The professor translated the hieroglyphic text written on the monument and found it made references to the ancient Egyptian god Osiris, said Hawwas.

    Hawwas said the inscription also refers to King Seti I (died circa 1290 BC) and that the item was now at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo where it was being studied.

    Hawwas had written an article in an American newspaper on Egyptian monuments stolen abroad.