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VIENNA, AUSTRIA—The Local, Austria, reports that an ancient ushabti figurine confiscated from two men who tried to sell it for more than two million euros has been returned to Egypt by Sabine Haag, director of Vienna’s Art History Museum. The two men, who were acquitted of receiving the allegedly stolen artifact, claimed to have bought it at a flea market. Museum officials authenticated the figurine, which is some 2,500 years old, and handed it over to the Egyptian ambassador Khaled Abdelrahman Abdellatif Shamaa. Ushabti figurines are grave goods that were intended to serve the deceased in the afterlife. To read in-depth about ancient Egypt, go to "The Cult of Amun."
