CAIRO: Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities says it has retrieved from the Netherlands a small pharaonic funerary statue — over 3,000 years old — dating back to the 19th Dynasty.

The Council said that the statue was found in 1985 by Dutch and British archaeologists in Saqqara, but was stolen from a nearby storehouse.

A Dutch businessman later bought it and took it to a museum in the city of Leiden to confirm its value. There, he was told the statue was stolen. Dutch authorities ruled to hand it back to Egypt.

The statue is 85 millimeters high, with hieroglyphic inscriptions. – AP