A 26th-dynasty limestone relief and two Graeco-Roman skulls are back in Egypt, Nevine El-Aref reports. An archaeological delegation headed by Youssef Khalifa, director of the department of stolen and recovered antiquities at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), returned from London this week with three artefacts that had been stolen and illegally smuggled out of Egypt. The first was an ancient Egyptian object saved for the nation when the SCA succeeded in halting its sale at Bonham's auction hall in London as part of its campaign to stamp out the trade in illegally- smuggled artefacts. The object is an inscribed limestone relief that was chopped off the tomb wall of the 26th-Dynasty nobleman Mutirdis. The tomb was discovered in 1969 at Assassif on Luxor's west bank by German Egyptologist Jan Assman, and the fragment was apparently still in its original place when the tomb was restored between 1973 and 1974. A photograph of the inscription still in situ was published in 1977 in Das Grab der Mutirdis. Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the SCA, said the relief consisted of two parts, the upper one bearing a hieroglyphic text engraved in six columns and a cartouche of a 26th-Dynasty queen, Nocratice, who lived in the seventh century BC, as well as the various titles and names of the tomb's owner. The lower part, which is still in the tomb, features the tomb's owner with a long wig in a position of worship. The relief appeared in Bonham's sale catalogue two weeks ago, and Hawass immediately wrote to the auction house requesting that the sale be stopped as the relief had been stolen and smuggled out of Egypt illegally. The other retrieved objects are two human skulls that were found in the front garden of a house in Manchester belonging to a medical doctor who is interesting in anatomy. The story of these skulls began on the summer of 1988 when the doctor was on holiday in Egypt and succeeded in taking the skulls by stealth to use in his research. The skulls remained in his possession, but his wife was unhappy about the items. When early this year the couple moved to a larger house the wife insisted on not taking the skulls, which led the doctor to bury them in the front garden. In early June when the new owner began cultivating the garden he found a skull near the surface of the ground and notified the police, who after investigation found the second skull. Carbon dating was conducted on the skulls at Oxford University and it was established that the skulls were more than 2,000 years old. As a result of the cultural and diplomatic cooperation between Egypt and the United Kingdom, the skulls were handed over to the Egyptian Embassy in London and returned home.
