The return of this antique statue began last year when the Swiss government decided to return a fragment of the statue to the Egyptian embassy in Bern.
This was done in line with the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Import, Illicit Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and a bilateral agreement between the two countries, as reported by the Russian newspaper Sputnik.
“The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities received the head of a statue of King Ramesses II, which had been received by the Egyptian embassy in the Swiss capital, Bern,” a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, reads.
“Last July, after the success of the efforts of the Egyptian Ministries of Tourism and Antiquities, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the concerned authorities to track it down and recover it, as it had left Egypt in an illegal manner,” the statement adds.
The ministry also noted that the antique is currently in Egyptian care, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, as the restoration of the artifact is in the works. According to the authorities, the fragment was looted from the Ramesses II temple at Abydos, central Egypt.
The head of Egypt’s agency responsible for repatriating antiquities, Shaaban Abdel Gawad, stated that the statue was most likely taken in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The ancient artifact was found by Egyptian officials in 2013 when it was on display for sale in London. It would later be moved across other nations before reaching Switzerland.
Ramesses II was the third pharaoh of Ancient Egypt’s nineteenth dynasty. He succeeded to the throne at the age of 25 and is said to have reigned from 1279-1213 BC.