Netherlands to return stolen 3,500-year-old sculpture to Egypt

The Netherlands will return a stolen sculpture from the time of the pharaohs to Egypt, outgoing prime minister Dick Schoof has announced after meeting Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The artefact, a 3,500-year-old stone head depicting a senior official from the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III, was stolen and illegally exported from Egypt before resurfacing at the Tefaf art fair in Maastricht in 2022. The dealer surrendered the piece once its provenance was confirmed.

Thutmose III ruled from 1479 to 1425 BC and is described by the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden as “the Napoleon of Egypt” for his military conquests across the Middle East and Nubia, the region spanning southern Egypt and northern Sudan.

The cultural heritage department expects to hand over the sculpture to the Egyptian ambassador in the Netherlands by the end of the year. It is unclear how the object disappeared, but the inspectorate believes it was likely looted during the Arab Spring in 2011 or 2012.

Egypt has not yet decided where the sculpture will be displayed. One option is the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which officially opened this weekend. The museum houses some 50,000 artefacts from ancient Egyptian civilisation, dating back as far as 3000 BC.

Schoof, who was in Egypt for the museum opening, called the restitution “a symbolic gesture”, emphasising that the Netherlands would receive nothing in return. “President Sisi was extremely pleased,” he said. “He underlined how important it is to recover such artefacts and to act against the illegal trade.”