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Monday, March 26, 2007
Egypt has succeeded in retrieving two food alabaster boxes in the shape of ducks which had been excavated by Dr. Dieter Arnold in 1979 from the pyramid complex of Amenemhat III at Dahshur then smuggled abroad. These were reconstructed, then taken immediately to the magazines at Saqqara and stored there, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni announced Sunday. Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawass explained that such boxes returned back to Egypt with the help of Arnold who is now a senior curator at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Hawass continued that several years ago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the other from Rupert Wace Ancient Art Limited in London. Arnold was intrigued by these ducks, as he knew they must be royal, but the Metropolitan Museum was not satisfied with their provenances and decided against buying them. However, he and his assistant, Adela Oppenheim, continued to study photographs of these ducks and realised that they were, in fact, the same ducks that Arnold has excavated in 1979. Arnold informed Hawass immediately of this situation. Careful checking of the ducks against Arnold's excavation notes and the information recorded in the Saqqara magazine registers confirmed the identification of the Christie's and Waca ducks with Arnold's ducks. An inventory of the Saqqara magazines showed that they were indeed missing, along with a number of other artifacts. When apprised of the situation, Christie's immediately removed the first duck from auction and turned it over to the US Department of Homeland Security. It will be returned to Egypt soon. The Wace Gallery returned the duck in their possession to its current owner in Paris, PIASA, and informed them that the object was a stolen antiquity. The SCA contacted the Parisian owners, who immediately agreed to return it to Egypt. |
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