In a step that comes as a result of cooperation with the US authorities, Egypt considered that the restoration of the green coffin, a precious artifact, comes in the field of protecting cultural property and recovering smuggled antiquities.

The Egyptian ministers of foreign affairs and tourism, Sameh Shoukry, and Ahmed Issa, witnessed the signing of a protocol on receiving the return of the green coffin, among 17 artifacts recovered from the United States, during a press conference, in the presence of the acting US ambassador to Cairo, Ambassador Daniel Rubinstein.

The minister of Tourism, who thanked the prosecutor's office in New York and the US embassy in Cairo for the effort exerted to recover these artifacts, stressed that Egypt is actively seeking cooperation with other countries to restore illegally smuggled antiquities, pointing to "the most important of these agreements, the cooperation agreement signed between the Egyptian and American Ministries of foreign affairs in 2016 for five years, which was renewed for another five years in November 2021, following which many important artifacts were recovered, including the golden coffin of the invitee, Najm Ankh in 2019," and more than five thousand artifacts in 2021, the latest of which we are dealing with today is 17 artifacts, including the sarcophagus Green".

During the conference, the current Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mustafa Waziri, explained that the lid of the coffin in the press conference hall is "one of the largest coffins known, as it is 2.94 meters long, almost 90 centimeters wide, and it is called the green coffin because of its color".

"The texts written on the coffin say that it belongs to a priest, most likely, named Ankh-em-MAAD," Waziri added, noting that it needs to be studied.

The thickness of the coffin "is very large, which prompted the grave robbers to steal the lid without the base, and most likely it had a smaller coffin inside with a mummy inside, because of its large size, its weight without the base was 500 kilograms,"he added.

He said that the known huge coffins belong to kings such as the sarcophagus of Queen Ahmose Nefertari "more than 3 meters" located in the Museum of Egyptian civilization in Fustat, but the green sarcophagus belongs to individuals, not kings.

He added that the features of the art found on the coffin indicate that it belongs to the late era "beginning from the 27th Dynasty or the beginning of the Ptolemaic era," believing that it came out of the Middle Egypt region, for example Beni Suef.

Al-Ahram newspaper quoted Waziri as saying that the events of this case date back to 2019, when Egypt, in cooperation with the US Attorney's office in Manhattan, New York, succeeded in recovering the gilded coffin of Najm Ankh, which was in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum after investigations that lasted more than two years," pointing out that the coffin will be deposited at the National Museum of Egyptian civilization.