I went out by illegal means ... Recover two antique pieces from Italy

Ambassador Hisham Badr, Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt to Italy, received, at the headquarters of the Anti-Crime Unit of the Italian Gendarmerie (Carpinari) in Rome, two antique pieces from the Greek and Roman eras; The first is an upper part of a statue of a woman made of pottery, and the second is a small vessel made of pottery with a wide mouth and a handle that connects the mouth to the body, and they date back to the Greco-Roman era, and they were seized in the Genoa region of Italy through the relevant security authorities.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement issued by it that this comes within the framework of Egypt's relentless efforts to restore Egyptian antiquities smuggled abroad and the great interest the Egyptian state and its institutions attach to preserving its heritage and cultural history, and the role that the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities looks to in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the field of antiquities restoration. The Egyptian contraband.

The ceremony of handover and surrender procedures was presided over by the Egyptian ambassador, Hisham Badr, and from the Italian side, General Roberto Riccardi, commander of the cultural property crime unit in the Carpentry.

Badr explained during those ceremonies that this comes as a continuation of constructive cooperation between the Egyptian and Italian sides to preserve the cultural heritage of the Egyptian and Roman civilizations, expressing his appreciation for this fruitful and continuous cooperation with the relevant Italian authorities to return more smuggled Egyptian antiquities, in line with what Egypt is doing. Efforts to recover all its antiquities illegally smuggled abroad.

Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, General Supervisor of the Recovered Antiquities Department, said that the events of the case date back to December 2019 when artifacts entered Italy from different countries, including two pieces belonging to the ancient Egyptian civilization, and with cooperation and coordination between the General Administration of Recovered Antiquities at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and an assistant office The Minister of Foreign Affairs for Cultural Relations and the Egyptian Embassy in Rome, Egypt was able to prove its ownership of the two pieces and that they were stolen from an archaeological site as a result of stealth digging and smuggled out of Egypt illegally, stressing that these two pieces are not from the holdings of museums or archaeological stores of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and that they are a result Stealth drilling.

It is worth noting that Egypt signed a bilateral agreement with Italy in the field of importing smuggled antiquities in 2008, and Egypt succeeded in recovering 195 artifacts, in addition to 21,660 coins from Italy in 2018.