The Egyptian embassy in Brussels, Belgium received an Egyptian Middle Kingdom statue as a preliminary step in bringing back to Egypt, said Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh Eldamaty.

The antiquities ministry has undertaken significant efforts in collaboration with all concerned international authorities in order to bring home the artefact, successfully proving its ownership and identifying how it was smuggled out of Egypt after being obtained through illegal digging.

The general supervisor of the ministry's Repatriated Antiquities Department, Shaaban Abdel-Gawad, said that the statue was discovered at a Belgian auction house in 2014.

The statue is made of black steatite stone, representing a standing couple (a man and a woman) with hieroglyphic inscriptions on the base referring to the name and title of the statue owner, according to Abdel-Gawad.

The newly recovered statue (courtesy of the Ministry of Antiquities)