Egypt retrieves two Roman masks from US next week

Egypt's Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni approved departure of an archaeological delegation led by First Undersecretary Emad Maglad to the United States next week to receive two gypsum masks (2000 years B.C.).

Zahi Hawas, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said one of the two masks belong to a woman and has got magnificent drawings of a cobra.

He added the two masks were seized in the possession of an arms dealer in Florida, noting a statue which was stolen 15 years ago will be restored next week too from Toronto Museum.

Another delegation will be sent to London to examine more than 2000 Egyptian pieces in Heathrow Airport which were in the possession of an Egyptian residing in London alleging he inherited them from his father in 1955, said Hawas.

Hawas said this falls within efforts to restore Egyptian antiquities in the museums of Toronto, Louvre, Bologna and Fine Arts Museum in Boston as well as the mummy of King Ramses I in Emry Museum in Atlanta, Georgia and the head of Amenhotep III, seized in the case of US antiquities thief Frederick Schultz.