Germany repatriated 40 Ancient Egyptian statuettes to Egypt on Monday after they had been stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country, in the first step to returning them home.
The batch of artefacts consists of 40 ushabti statuettes seized by German customs at Frankfurt Airport in 2020, Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, the supervisor-general of antiquities repatriation, told Ahram online.
The statuettes were used in Ancient Egyptian burials, where they were expected to serve as magical servants for the deceased when gods requested him to undertake menial tasks in the afterlife
The figurines were examined by Egyptologists from Heidelberg university and the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, who affirmed Egypt’s rightful possession of these objects and ruled that they be returned.
Cultural Officer for the Middle East and Africa at the German Foreign Ministry Carsten Wilms handed over the artefacts to the Egyptian embassy in Berlin.
In 2017, Germany has changed an act in its cultural property law to facilitate the return of cultural good to its country of origin.
Source : Ahram