It was stolen from the temple in Luxor during a fire in 1972. The looters found the usual willing buyer: a greedy antiquities dealer willing to purchase to loot no questions asked.
The greedy antiquities dealer found the usual willing fence in Sotheby’s, where a German dealer bought it at auction.
From there, the eye traveled to a museum in Basel, Switzerland, and now that Switzerland has signed a memo of understanding with Egypt to return illegally exported antiquities, it’s finally going back home, only 35 years after it was stolen.
There are going to be lots more stories like these as Switzerland confronts its long history of warehousing looted goods.
His EYE?? They stole his EYE?!? There’s a fire, all the guards (if there were any) and guides and sweaty tourists are currently occupied – and they take AN EYE! 😮
And that’s not something that’s just sitting around waiting to be picked up and walked off with.
An eye…. sheesh.
That’s the thing about these looter sumbitches: they will chop eyes out of statues, chisel entire walls of frescoes off buildings in Pompeii, dynamite a tomb to collect funerary vases, and on and on.
They are completely amoral. :no:
The looters must be punished….an eye for an eye!
Well said! :giggle:
Thak you for the news
My pleasure. :hattip: