ART

Fragments from nine ancient Egyptian tomb paintings will be returned to Egypt because curators have concluded they were stolen from a 15th-Century BC tomb, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts said. The museum bought the paintings from an art dealer in Amsterdam in 1978 for an undisclosed sum and they are not considered archeologically significant, museum officials said. Museum Director Alan Shestack said he expects the artifacts to be returned to Egypt in the spring. The fragments came from the Theban tomb of Minnakht, an official in the period of Thutmose III, and date to 1450-1420 BC, said Timothy Kendall, the museum’s acting curator of Egyptian and ancient Near Eastern art. The tomb is located in the Nobles Tombs at Luxor in southern Egypt.