WASHIGTON: For the first time, the U.S. has entered into a bilateral agreement with a Middle Eastern country to stop the importation of smuggled artifacts. An ancient mummy hand destined for a Hollywood prop studio was one of five artifacts returned to the Egyptian government in a repatriation ceremony held December 1 in Washington D.C.
Attendees of the ceremony at the Egyptian embassy admired the wizened hand, delicately propped atop a pedestal, as well as a colorful child’s sarcophagus, a carved wooden sarcophagus panel, a painted mummy shroud, and a gilded mummy mask—all on display for the last time before their return to their country of origin. All of the artifacts are estimated to be more than 2,500 years old.
While the exact destination of each artifact is uncertain, many may find their way to the Grand Egyptian Museum, a new repository for the country’s artifacts currently being built in the shadow of the famous Pyramids at Giza.
“These [artifacts] are more at home in Egypt than they are in someone’s private collection in the United States,” observed Fredrik Hiebert, archaeologist-in-residence at the National Geographic Society.
With the exception of the mummy hand, all of the artifacts displayed at the repatriation ceremony were seized as part of an extensive, five-year antiquities trafficking operation dubbed “Operation Mummy’s Curse.”
The investigation, led by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), was featured in the June 2016 National Geographic cover story, “How Tomb Raiders Are Stealing Our History.”
The operation began in 2008 when federal authorities were alerted to an artifact offered for sale by New York-based antiquities dealer Mousa Khouli. The artifact appeared identical to an object in the hands of a man in a photograph accompanying a 2003 article on the looting of the ancient site of Isin in Iraq. Some 7,000 artifacts from countries including Egypt, Iraq, and Yemen were ultimately seized, along with more than $80,000 and a 9mm handgun.
