Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Ancient Coffin Lids Heading Back to Egypt

Israel will return to Egypt the lids of two ancient sarcophagi that had held mummies.

The coffin lids were confiscated in Jerusalem in April by the Israel Antiquities Authority, according to media reports.

The ancient decorated wooden covers, determined to be authentic and thousands of years old, were stolen from Egypt and smuggled first to Dubai and then to a European country before arriving in Israel. They were sawed in half to allow for their easy transport, causing irreparable damage to the ancient items.

They were discovered during a raid of antiques shops in the Old City of Jerusalem by inspectors of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery.

The coffin covers likely were brought to Israel in order to obtain authentication documentation that would allow them to be exported and sold abroad to the highest bidder. The documentation would have identified them as being discovered in Israel.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.