Cairo Endeavors to Halt King Tut Statue Head Auctioning in London

The Egyptian antiquities ministry on Monday asked the foreign ministry to take all legal measures necessary to stop the sale of  King Tut statue head on display at Christie’s auction house in London

Ministry of foreign affairs has called on Christie's auction house and UNESCO to stop the sale of a quartzite head from a statue of King Tutankhamun.

The sale is scheduled to take place at Christie’s auction hall in London on 4 July.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian embassy in London has called on the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the auction hall to stop the sale of the head and return it to Egypt along with a number of other ancient Egyptian artefact to be auctioned on 3 July.

Christie’s says the head will be auctioned off from the private Resandro collection in a sale that includes marble heads from ancient Rome, a painted wooden Egyptian coffin, and a bronze Egyptian statue of a cat.

According to Christie’s listing, the head is 28.5cm-tall, carved in brown quartzite and depicts the boy king in the shape of god Amon. Christie’s said that the collection was acquired from Heinz Herzer from Munich in 1985.

Prior to this, the head was owned by Austrian Joseph Messina, who acquired it in 1973-74 from Prinz Wilhelm von Thurn und Taxis, who reputedly had it in his collection by the 1960s. It was exhibited twice: in Germany in 1992 and 1993 and in Spain in 2002.