Holland Will Return A Looted 3,500-Year-Old Stone Bust Following Lavish Egyptian Museum Opening

Holland Will Return A Looted 3,500-Year-Old Stone Bust Following Lavish Egyptian Museum Opening

Holland Will Return A Looted 3,500-Year-Old Stone Bust Following Lavish Egyptian Museum Opening Dutch Information and Heritage Inspectorate Having identified a 3,500-year-old bust of a pharaoh among the nation’s antiquity dealers, The Netherlands are turning it over to the Egyptian authorities in a “good faith gesture.” It’s believed to have been stolen during the Arab Spring of 2011-12, when intense protests brought the end of Hosni Mubarak’s Presidency and the start of several years of turmoil in the land of the Nile. Its return coincides with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the world focused on a single civilization, spanning 120 acres, and housing some 100,000 artifacts. This bust, believed because of the craftsmanship to date to around 1,450 BCE, depicts the pharaoh Thutmose III, a contender for consideration as the most powerful ruler in all Egypt’s history. Son of the not-too-inglorious Thutmose II, whose tomb was discovered in May of t…