CAIRO: Another victory for Egypt's top archaeologist. The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art on Wednesday agreed to return a number of historical pieces from the tomb of Egypt's most famous king. The Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities said that the move was the right thing to do and that Egypt deserves all pieces from the tomb of Tutankhamun. The museum said in a statement that it agreed to recognize Egypt's right to 19 treasures in has in its possession. The relics had been at the museum since early last century. The artifacts, which include a bronze figurine of a dog with a golden collar and a sphinx, part of a bracelet made of semi-precious lapis lazuli, will be returned next year and go on display in 2012, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said. “Thanks to the generosity and ethical behavior of the Met, these 19 objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun can now be reunited with the other treasures of the boy king,” Hawass said. He said the artifacts will remain on display in the United States until mid-2011. Met director Thomas Campbell said in a statement on the museum's website that its Egyptian art department “produced detailed evidence leading us to conclude without doubt that 19 objects, which entered the Met's collection over the period of the 1920s to 1940s, originated in Tutankhamun's tomb.” He said that they were being returned because of special rules drawn up at the time for the Tutankhamun dig. Unlike other archaeological discoveries at the time, some of which the Egyptian government allowed excavators to keep, the treasures found in Tutankhamun's tomb were meant to stay in the country. 15 of the 19 relics are “bits and samples,” the Met statement said. The remaining four, including the dog figurine and the sphinx, are “of more significant art-historical interest.” Hawass has been pushing hard for the return of all Egyptian artifacts to the country since he began his tenure at the SCA. Last year, he forced Paris' Louvre museum to return a number of pieces after he threatened to ban them from researching in Egypt. BM
