A3,000-year-old stolen sarcophagus will return home to Egypt from the US tomorrow after it was handed to Egypt's top archaeologist Zahi Hawass in the US on Wednesday, Egypt's Ministry of Culture said in a statement yesterday. "The sarchophagus will be back Saturday (tomorrow) with Hawass," the statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Gazette, said. At a ceremony at the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC, US authorities returned the sarcophagus, which was confiscated by customs officials at Miami International Airport in 2008. "We don't know anything about this coffin," Hawass, the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, said. "It left Egypt illegally, but we don't have really any list of the stolen artifacts that left Egypt." The coffin belonged to someone called Ames, who lived almost 3,000 years ago; it is believed to have been taken in 1970 from Egypt to Spain. A statement from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the coffin was originally scrutinised for agricultural concerns at Miami's airport. US Customs and Border Protection and ICE contacted the importer to see if the coffin had been exported legally from Egypt. "Given the absence of a credible provenance, the item was determined to be owned by Egypt through its Cultural Patrimony Laws," the ICE statement said.
