In collaboration with Egypt’s cultural office in Paris, Egypt succeeded in recovering a 33cm-tall wooden statuette that was stolen from the Saqqara necropolis galleries in the aftermath of the January 2011 revolution.

Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty told Ahram Online that the statuette was possibly a handle of a cosmetic pot and depicts a naked woman resting on her belly with her arms stretched forward.

“The statuette will come home in October after its French owner agreed to return it to Egypt when he realised that it was stolen and illegally smuggled out of the country,” Eldamaty told Ahram Online.