A smuggled sarcophagus lid was retrieved at the Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait on 9 October and is now being shipped back to its homeland. The 170 cm wooden coffin cover was smuggled from Egypt to Kuwait in March. The cover was buried inside a sofa that was shipped through a cargo company. Kuwait Airways cargo unraveled the hidden artifact while scanning the shipment. Egyptian authorities at the embassy confirmed that the artifact will be sent to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities restoration unit. Tarek El-Qouni, Egyptian Ambassador in Kuwait, applauded the cooperation of Kuwaiti authorities such as Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry, the Antiquities Department, the Customs Authority and the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters of Kuwait. Smuggling ancient artifacts has been a submerging issue in country, especially in the last few years. In 2017, the statue of King Djedefre was illegally transferred abroad from the area surrounding the Great Sphinx. In August of this year, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court however ruled that the storage company based at Geneva Free Port should transfer the statue to the Egypt and start processing its documents. According to the Swiss warehousing firm, the statue has…
