Egypt said Monday that it retrieved a 2,500-year-old limestone relief from London after its sale was blocked by Bonhams auction house there because it had been looted from a pharaoh's tomb.

Archaeologists have long fixed their sights on the grandeur that was ancient Egypt, the pyramids, temples and tombs. Few bothered to dig beneath and beyond the monumental stones for glimpses into the living and working spaces of ordinary Egyptians.

Egypt said Monday that it had retrieved a 2,500-year-old limestone relief from London after its sale was blocked by Bonhams auction house there because it had been looted from a pharaoh’s tomb. A team of Egyptian archaeologists traveled to Britain to retrieve the artifact, which bears hieroglyphic text engraved in six rows and a cartouche of an ancient Egyptian queen, according to a statement issued Monday by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

A third of the Coptic sculptures at the Brooklyn Museum of Art are modern fakes. Its collection of late Egyptian sculpture was, until now, the second largest in North America. Brooklyn curator Dr Edna Russmann, who is concluding a study of the works, warns that other museums which acquired Coptic sculptures in the past 50 years are likely to face similar problems.

The Ministry of Culture and the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) have been at the forefront of a campaign since 2002 to stamp out the trade in artefacts illegally smuggled from Egypt and bring them back home. To put the campaign into effect, the SCA has created a new department in its administrative body, the National Committee to Return Smuggled Antiquities (NCRSA), to list all the objects that have been illegally smuggled out of the country together with those missing from archaeological storehouses and museums.

An archaeological delegation headed by Youssef Khalifa, director of the department of stolen and recovered antiquities at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), returned from London this week with three artefacts that had been stolen and illegally smuggled out of Egypt.

A collection of painted wooden sarcophagi dating from the Late Period have been unearthed at the Saqqara necropolis To the south of the causeway of the pyramid of Unas.

The cemetery is believed to be of senior royal staffers or persons who participated in the establishment of the royal tombs. It contains 13 tombs. The cemetery was discovered by a mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Umm el-Ga'ab area, south of Sohag's Abydos archaeological city.

Ancient Egypt Research Associates, Inc., the premier non-profit organization conducting original archaeological research and educational programs in Egypt, worked closely with Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), and a Japanese consortium to use large laser scanners to produce a three-dimensional map of every inch of Egypt's oldest pyramid and first gigantic stone monument.

Zahi Hawas, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), said that a huge screen will be put in the solar boat museum, which is on the southern side of the great pyramid. The screen will show the boat which lies 10 metres below the surface. Archaeologists covered the boat again so that it would not be damaged. Hawas said that SCA, in cooperation with Japanese Egyptologist Sakuji Yoshimura from the University of Waseda in Japan will place the camera inside the boat. Tourists will be able to see the boat starting next Saturday without the pit having to be uncovered again.