Egypt's Foreign Ministry handed over to the Antiquities Ministry on Friday a relief that was recovered from Switzerland, the Antiquities Ministry announced in a statement on its official Facebook page.
The relief was originally cut from a the wall of a temple at Behbit Al-Hegara in Gharbiya governorate and was put on sale in an auction hall in Switzerland, said the supervisor general of the Repatriated Antiquities Department, Shaaban Abdel Gawad.
The Antiquities Ministry managed to stop the sale of the antiquity in November and proved Egypt's repossession of the piece.
According to Abdel Gawad, the relic bears a scene depicting a goddess holding in her right hand the
'Ankh' or key of life symbol.
Behbit Al-Hegara Temple was robbed in 1990. In 2011, the Ministry succeeded in retrieving from the US another engraving from the temple, featuring 'Akht' or Apis, the cow-shaped ancient Egyptian goddess.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
