Ancient Egypt tablet back after collector notified officials

Published March 03, 2016

Egypt's antiquities ministry says the country was able to retrieve a stolen ancient tablet that is more than 4,000 years old after Swiss art collector Jean Claude Gandur notified Swiss authorities about the item.

The general supervisor of the repatriation department at the antiquities ministry Shaaban Abdel-Gawad said Thursday that Gandur had bought the Seven Sacred Oils tablet from a Belgian antiquities dealer and had notified the authorities when he found out it was stolen.

The ministry says the tablet was taken out of Egypt illegally amid the security vacuum in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty says Switzerland handed the item to the Egyptian embassy as per a bilateral agreement between the two countries.

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