Netherlands says it will return stolen 3,500-year-old sculpture to Egypt after Grand Egyptian Museum opens

Cairo — The Prime Minister of the Netherlands announced Sunday that the European nation will soon return a 3,500-year-old sculpture to Egypt, a day after attending the lavish Opening ceremony of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza

Prime Minister Dick Schoof said in a statement that during a meeting Sunday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, he informed his counterpart that the Netherlands would return a bust of a senior official from the dynasty of Pharaoh Thutmose III.

The piece was discovered for sale at an art fair in 2022 and was confiscated after Dutch authorities received an anonymous tip about its illegal origin, according to a statement from the Dutch government.

The statement said that the art exhibition “dealer voluntarily gave up the sculpture” and that Dutch police and other officials “investigated the origin of the head and discovered that the head was obtained by looting and was illegally exported.”

The bust is expected to be handed over to Egypt’s ambassador to the Netherlands later this year, according to the statement.

It will be the first artifact returned to Egypt since the GEM’s grand opening event. Several campaigns prior to the opening have sought to bring looted egyptian antiquities Back to the country.

Egypt’s government hosted dozens of foreign leaders and dignitaries on Saturday for the official opening ceremony of the new facility, a billion-dollar project that took decades to complete.

“It is a great day for Egypt and for humanity. This is Egypt’s gift to the world. It is a dream come true, after all these years, the GEM is finally and officially open,” Nevine El-Aref, media advisor to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, told News themezone on Saturday.

The GEM is one of the largest museums in the world and the largest dedicated to a single civilization: ancient Egypt. Its subject spans some 7,000 years, from prehistory to the end of the Greek and Roman eras, around 400 AD.

Egyptian officials hope the new museum will boost the country’s tourism industry and, with it, the still-struggling economy. They have predicted that the GEM will attract about 5 million visitors a year.