US authorities return eight stolen ancient Egyptian artifacts

US authorities agreed to return eight ancient Egyptian artifacts stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country.

Today, upon his arrival from the United States, Minister of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim announced that US authorities agreed to return eight ancient Egyptian artefacts stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country.
The objects are to arrive next month.

The pieces include the upper part of a painted anthropoid wooden sarcophagus from the Third Intermediate period depicting a face of a woman wearing a wig decorated with coloured flowers.

Two linen mummy wrappings covered with plaster and bearing paintings showing winged amulets pushing the sun disc are also among the artefacts.

Hieroglyphic text showing the name and titles of the deceased are also found on the plaster cover.

The third piece is a cartonage painted mummy mask from the Third Intermediate period while the fourth and fifth items are Middle Kingdom wooden boats.

The other three items are limestone statues from the Third Intermediate period and the Late Ancient Egyptian period.

Ibrahim told Ahram Online that the artifacts were seized by US Homeland Security officials at Customs in New York City after the person traveling with the pieces was not able to prove legal possession.

He added that because the artifacts belong to different ancient Egyptian periods, they would have been stolen in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution, when a lack of security overwhelmed the country leaving its heritage vulnerable to theft.

"Enjoy an exclusive visit to the Egyptian museum the world 2nd largest museum ,most of Cairo day tours include a tour to the museum only for limited time but with our tour you can stay longer as you wish enjoying each piece of Tut Ankh Amun collection, the royal Mask, along with all the other master pieces of the ancient art collections."

http://www.egyptraveluxe.com/cairo_half_day_tour_to_cairo_egyptian_museum.htm

The bindweeds of Egypt and their symbolic role for the deceased

http://www.egyptraveluxe.com/cairo_half_day_tour_to_cairo_egyptian_museum.php From the Middle Kingdom until the 18th Dynasty, representations are found of a parasitic bindweed associated with the stems of papyrus, . Its representations increase and refine themselves during the Amarnian period because of the naturalistic leaning to nature; but it is in Ramesside times, and more particularly that of Ramesses II, that the images become more beautiful and most detailed. The plant is frequently attached to the stem of the papyrus, or to bouquets, but being also able to, more rarely, exist separately. After the 20th Dynasty, if the theme persists, the quality of the representations decrease (as do all more representations of nature). This success under the Ramesseses is probably linked with the specific beliefs of that time, and notably the eminent place that the solar cults occupy. The nature of the plant has been under debate a long time ...

The Masonry Boxes of the Great Sphinx

One aspect of the Great Sphinx at Giza that has somehow been overlooked by "fringe" authors is the presence of four odd masonry boxes that are situated against the body of the Sphinx at floor level, two on the north side and two on the south. Masonry "boxes" (in red). August Mariette uncovered the boxes while clearing the sand around the Sphinx in the 1850s. At that time, there were five boxes, but one on the north side has since disappeared. The arrangement of the boxes is asymmetrical and seems to make little sense. What was their purpose? Mariette first thought they served as buttresses to support the slope of the masonry on the body of the Sphinx. But he changed his mind when he found pieces of a colossal statue of Osiris that was, he wrote, composed of separate blocks. A travel writer in 1856 counted the blocks: there were 28 (Laorty-Hadji, L'Egypte , p. 382). The fragments included a badly worn face and a white crown made of limestone. Limesto...

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