Tutankhamen Relic Sold for $6 Million in London

Three-thousand-year-old quartzite head of the Egyptian ‘Boy King’ Tutankhamen was auctioned off recently in London despite a fierce outcry from Cairo. Christie’s auction house sold the 11-inch relic for 4,746,250 pounds ($6 million). Information about the buyer is not disclosed.

The famous Egyptian pharaoh’s chiseled face, calm eyes and puffed lips, which reflect a sense of eternal peace reached Christie’s from the private Resandro Collection of ancient art. Angry Egyptian officials wanted the auction to be halted and the treasure to be returned to them. 

Many protesters were seen waving Egyptian flags outside the London salesroom of the auction house holding signs, which read, “stop trading in smuggled antiquities”. A 50 year old protesting Egyptian national named Magda Sakr said, “This should not be kept at home. It should be in a museum. It is history. It is one of our most famous kings”.

The antiquities ministry of Egypt in its official statement said, “The Egyptian government will take all the necessary measures to recover Egyptian antiquities that left Egypt illegally”. 

Zahi Hawass, former antiquities minister of Egypt also accused that the piece was ‘stolen’ in the 1970s from the Karnak Temple complex, north of Luxor. He also added, “We think it left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple”.

The Egyptian foreign ministry also requested the UK Foreign Office and UNESCO to step in and halt the sale. But such interventions can be made only when there is clear evidence of the item’s legitimate acquisition by the seller being in dispute.

Christie’s also argued that Egypt had never before expressed the urgent level of concern about the item whose existence has been publicly well known for many years. In its official statement, Christie’s clearly said, “The object is not, and has not been, the subject of an investigation”.

During the auction, the auction house has also published a chronology of how the relic changed hands between European art dealers over the past 50 years. 

Tutankhamen is believed to have become a pharaoh at an early age of nine years and to have died about 10 years later at the age of 19 years. Britain’s Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the boy king in the year 1922 along with enormous wealth around.

The lavish discovery revived the world’s interest in ancient Egypt, which set the stage for subsequent battles over ownership of cultural masterpieces unearthed in the colonial times. Meanwhile, Tutankhamen became popularly known as King Tut and who was made into the subject of popular songs and films.

Egypt’s campaign to recover its lost art gained momentum only after it realised that most of its artworks went missing during the looting that also accompanied the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak from power in the year 2011.

Cairo has managed to regain hundreds of its looted and stolen artefacts by working with both various auction houses and international cultural groups. But so far it was not able to provide evidence for the Tutankhamen bust being illegally obtained.