Details about the US State Department’s memorandum of understanding for cultural heritage protection with Egypt are now public.
Signed on November 30, the agreement sets up frameworks to identify, interdict, and repatriate trafficked cultural objects and archaeological artifacts from Egypt, currently in the US.
According to news outlet The National, the memorandum of understanding sets ways to coordinate law enforcement activities across US federal and local governments and museums and cultural heritage managers in Egypt and internationally.
Most of the illegal trafficking from Egypt’s first transits through Europe or the Gulf.
This week, as part of the deal concluded with Egypt and the new provision of the MoU, billionaire hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt was compelled to surrender 180 stolen relics, collectively worth an estimated $70 million, and agreed to an unprecedented lifetime ban on acquiring antiquities.
Investigators found that Steinhardt, one of the world’s largest ancient art collectors, was in possession of looted artifacts smuggled out of 11 countries by 12 criminal networks, according to a statement from the Manhattan District Attorney’s (DA) office this Monday.
The home countries of the artifacts varied, and the investigation involved cooperation with authorities in Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, and Turkey.
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