CAIRO, March 27 (MENA) - The Ministry of Antiquities, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry, succeeded to retrieve three artifacts that were smuggled abroad. Egypt's General Consulate in New York has received the pieces that will be flown home. The restored items are parts of a mummy, a head and two hands, that were stolen from the Valley of the Kings in Luxor and smuggled outside the country in 1927, head of the Ministry's general department of retrieved antiquities Shaaban Abdel Gawad said in statements on Tuesday. The antiquities were being showcased at an auction house in Manhattan when the antiquities trafficking unit of the US Attorney General's Office in New York halted the auction, he said. The US authorities informed the Ministry of Antiquities which contacted the Foreign Ministry to take necessary action to receive the pieces and bring them home, he added. Abdel Gawad praised efforts by the Foreign Ministry and the US authorities concerned which he said would certainly make close relations between the two countries in this respect even stronger.