Metropolitan Museum of Art Returns Artifact to EgyptBy STAN PARCHINOctober 26, 2009
Egyptian, Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12 (ca. 1981-1802 B.C.). Fragment from Naos of Pharaoh Amenemhat I (r. 1981-1952 B.C.). Red granite. Photograph courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Egypt's Ministry of Culture announced today that The Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning a corner piece of a red granite naos or shrine to Cairo on October 29, 2009. The Met purchased the carved stone fragment from an antiquities collector in New York one year ago with the intention of repatriating it to Egypt. The unidentified owner said he bought the artifact in the 1970s. The fragment belongs to the base of the naos of Pharaoh Amenemhat I (r. 1991-1962 B.C.), the Middle Kingdom founder of Egypt's 12th Dynasty (ca. 1991-1802 B.C.). The shrine, located in the Ptah Temple of Karnak at Luxor, was moved there during the New Kingdom (ca. 1550-1070 B.C.). Dorothea Arnold, Lila Acheson Wallace Chairman of the Department of Egyptian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, wrote to Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, in October 2008 regarding the antiquity's repatriation. Hawass hailed the museum's act as "a great deed" and described it as a first.
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