古物部说，为了接收这件文物，开罗派出了一堆考古专家队去伦敦，浮雕上有6行圣书字和一位王后的名字，但古物部没有公布文物回到埃及的时间安排。这个浮雕是1969年从Luxor的一个王陵里偷的。
伦敦Bonhams auction house工作人员说，这块浮雕本来排期在下周五拍卖，但后来发现了它是贼桩。“纽约大都会美术馆的人警告我们说，这个东西曾经出现在一个古墓里，某个家伙在发掘时把它带走了。”
原文粘贴如下
2,500-year-old artifact returned to Egypt
London auction blocked because item was looted from a pharoah's tomb
CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt said Monday that it retrieved a 2,500-year-old limestone relief from London after its sale was blocked by Bonhams auction house there because it had been looted from a pharaoh's tomb.
A team of Egyptian archaeologists traveled to Britain to retrieve the artifact, which bears hieroglyphic text engraved in six rows and a cartouche of an ancient Egyptian queen, according to a statement issued Monday by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. It did not say when the carving was brought home.
The stone slab had been removed from a tomb discovered in 1969 in the Egyptian temple city of Luxor, the statement said.
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A spokesman for Bonhams auction house in London confirmed that the relief had been listed for sale in May, but was withdrawn after experts discovered it had been looted.
"We were alerted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (in New York) that this item had apparently been seen in a tomb that someone at the Met had been involved in the excavation of," spokesman Julian Roup said Monday.
"It has now been repatriated, as we always try to do in these situations," he said.
Roup would not identify the seller who tried to put the artifact up for auction, but said it appeared to have been bought "in good faith."
The archaeologists also retrieved from London two human skulls from dating back to Egypt's Greek-Roman era, the Council statement said.
The remains were believed to have been taken by a British doctor during a visit to Egypt in 1988, it said. The man buried the skulls in his front garden in Manchester after his wife refused to allow him to bring them to a new house they bought earlier this year, the statement said.
The garden's new owner found the skulls and informed police, who had them examined by Oxford University archaeologists. They were discovered to be more than 2,000 years old, and were subsequently handed over to the Egyptian Embassy in London, the statement added.
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感谢Steve Detwiler