Switzerland has returned to Egypt a fragment of a more than 3,400-year-old statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, which was stolen decades ago from a temple in Abydos.
The director of the federal department of culture (OFC), Carine Bachmann, handed over this “important archaeological asset” to the Egyptian embassy in Switzerland on Monday, in Bern, she revealed in a statement.
The stone carving of Pharaoh Ramses II, to which the returned fragment belongs, shows the king sitting next to various Egyptian deities, according to the OFC.
Ramesses II, who ascended the throne at age 25 to succeed his father Seti I, ruled Egypt for some 66 years, the longest reign in Egyptian history.
The returned fragment was stolen in the late 1980s and early 1990s from the Temple of Ramses II in Abydos, Egypt, and transited through several countries before arriving in Switzerland, where it was eventually confiscated by the Geneva cantonal authorities after a process penal. .
“This restitution reinforces the joint commitment of Switzerland and Egypt to combat the illicit trade in cultural property, reinforced in 2011 by the entry into force of a bilateral agreement on the import and return of cultural property,” the OFC said.
Both Switzerland and Egypt are party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention “Prohibition and Prevention of the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property”.
Source: TSF
