Looted ancient wooden sarcophagus from the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences returned to Egypt

Egyptian officials said on Monday that a historic wooden sarcophagus that was on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences has been returned to Egypt after it was found to have been plundered in the past.

The Egyptian government’s efforts to halt the trafficking of its stolen antiquities include the repatriation. 5,300 stolen antiques from all across the world were successfully returned to Egypt by Cairo officials in 2021.

The sarcophagus is believed to have been created during the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, which ran from 664 B.C., during the reign of the last of the Pharaohs, until Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332 B.C., according to Mostafa Waziri, the top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The sarcophagus, almost 3 meters (9.5 feet) tall with a brightly painted top surface, may have belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, though some of the inscription on it has been erased, Waziri said.

It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony Monday in Cairo by Daniel Rubinstein, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Egypt.

The handover came more than three months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office determined the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo. It was smuggled through Germany into the United States in 2008, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg.