Brussels – Belgian authorities on Friday said they had handed over a roughly 2,000-year-old sarcophagus to Egypt, a decade after it was seized by police in Brussels.
Prosecutors said the artefact – along with a piece of an ancient wooden beard – was presented to the Egyptian ambassador at a ceremony in the Belgian capital.
“After 10 years of investigation and proceedings, it is a true act of justice to return to its country of origin an item that was misappropriated from its heritage,” said Julien Moinil, the Brussels public prosecutor.
The artefacts were seized by Belgian police in 2015 after Interpol issued a notice following a request from a court in Egypt, prosecutors said.
They were housed in the meantime at the Royal Museum of Art and History in Brussels.
A statement said that the wooden sarcophagus, which dates to the Ptolemaic period between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, “undoubtedly belonged to a member of Egyptian high society.”
“The choice of materials and the meticulous execution bear witness to exceptional craftsmanship,” it said.
It added that hieroglyphics on the sarcophagus made it possible to identify the former occupant as a man called Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered and that he was portrayed as having transformed into Osiris, god of the underworld.
