EU state returns 2,000-year-old sarcophagus to Egypt

The object had been held at a museum in Belgium since 2015, after it was seized following an Interpol alert

Belgium has formally returned a roughly 2,000-year-old wooden sarcophagus to Egypt after a decade-long investigation and legal proceedings, authorities in Brussels announced on Friday. The move marked the latest in a series of repatriations of stolen cultural relics to the North African country in recent years.

The artifact – dating back to Egypt’s Ptolemaic era, when the country was ruled by a Greek dynasty – was recovered after authorities found it had been smuggled into Belgium via illegal art networks. It was seized in 2015 by customs after an Interpol alert from Cairo. The coffin had since been held at Brussels’ Royal Museum of Art and History, pending legal verification.

A statement from the Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office said the wooden sarcophagus, shaped in the image of a mummified male, “undoubtedly belonged to a member of Egyptian high society.” It said the artifact’s “golden face and bluish hair are divine attributes, indicating that the deceased transformed into the form of the god Osiris, ruler of the underworld.”

The hieroglyphs – ancient Egyptian pictorial script – carved on the sarcophagus helped identify the man once buried inside as Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered, it added.

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It was handed over to Egypt’s ambassador to Belgium, Ahmed Abu Zeid, during a formal ceremony in the nation’s capital on Friday. A ceremonial wooden beard was also returned.

Belgian public prosecutor Julien Moinil hailed the restitution as “truly an act of justice” coming “after 10 years of investigation and proceedings.”

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The return comes as part of a broader campaign by Egyptian authorities to recover looted cultural property from European museums and academic collections. In May, France handed over seven rare artifacts —including a wooden statue of Anubis and ancient papyrus scrolls — following a Paris court ruling.

Earlier, Germany returned 67 objects, among them a mummified foot, and funerary masks to Cairo. Ireland’s University College Cork repatriated a painted wooden coffin, along with ritual jars and cartonnage fragments, after an agreement reached during Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s state visit to Dublin last December.