Mamdouh al-Damaty, Minister of Antiquities, said the ministry will recover in the coming weeks an artifact that is part of a temple pillar of King Thutmose IV in Luxor, which had been illegally smuggled to London.
"The ministry will receive the artifact from our embassy in London after the completion of the recovery procedures in coordination with the Foreign Ministry," Damaty added, in a statement issued on Wednesday.
"The ministry is working both on the legal and on the diplomatic level to recover what had been smuggled," he said.
The Antiquities Ministry's restored artifacts department manager Ali Ahmed said the piece was found with a British citizen who reported his willingness to return the artifact to Egypt after he found out it was original, and was illegally smuggled.
The artifact goes back to the 18th dynasty and has an inscription related to the god Amun-Re. I has been stolen from the King Thutmose IV temple in Karnak area, he added.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
