American University in Cairo Repatriates Artifacts

CAIRO, EGYPT—The American University in Cairo has handed over a collection of 5,000 artifacts excavated in the 1960s to Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities, according to a report in Ahram Online. At the time of the excavation, Egyptian law allowed foreign archaeological missions to divide artifacts with the Egyptian government. Under the Egypt Antiquities Law of 1983, ownership of the artifacts was transferred to the Egyptian government, but the objects remained at the university. University officials recently requested the return of the artifacts, uncovered in the Fustat region of Old Cairo, to the Egyptian state. The collection includes pottery vessels, ushabti figurines, tombstones, Greco-Roman wooden funerary masks, and lamps from the Islamic period. The artifacts will be housed in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat. For more, go to “A Pharaoh’s Last Fleet.”