Germany to return artifacts

Five 3,200-year-old decorative fragments from the tomb of Seti I will return to Egypt next month under an agreement reached between Egyptian authorities and the University of Tubingen in Germany.

Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, praised the Germans’ voluntary decision to return the relief segments, believed to have been pried decades ago from walls in the pharaoh’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

In announcing the return Thursday, Hawass noted that the German cooperation “stands in stark contrast” to the St. Louis Art Museum’s recent refusal to repatriate a noblewoman’s burial mask from the same period. Museum officials say Egypt hasn’t provided reliable evidence that the mask was stolen.