New Information Further Undercuts Egyptian Claims to SLAM Property

As CPO understands it, the basis for the Egyptian claim to the Ka Nefer Nefer Mummy Mask was that it must have been stolen from Egyptian stores.  But this claim is based on the further assumption that Egypt never allowed such materials to be gifted or sold.  However, the truthfulness of this assumption was undercut with the admission that Egyptian officials gifted antiquities in the past.  Moreover, it's CPO's understanding that the Egyptian Museum itself also sold antiquities at least until the 1960's.  Alan Safani  of the IADAA has also confirmed that antiquities sales were allowed in Egypt in the past, but he has also characterized the provision of official paperwork or export certificates as "haphazard."  In CPO's view, all this raises the distinct possibility that the Saint Louis Art Museum may also have been able to defeat the Egyptian claim on the merits.