OTTAWA -- An ancient Egyptian cat statue has been repatriated, nearly a year after it was intercepted by border officials.
Canadian officials presented the intricate bronze cat to Egypt's ambassador to Canada at a ceremony in Ottawa on Tuesday.
"It is definitely part of our heritage … not only of Egyptian heritage, but the heritage of humanity," Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid told CTV News. "The moment we were sure of the authenticity of the piece we started the communication with the Government of Canada for the handover of this piece."
Standing just about 15 centimetres tall, the little bronze statue is a symbol of the ancient Egyptian goddess Bastet. A divine power, Bastet represents fertility, family, good health and humanity. Experts say statues like this, made of bronze or wood, were often left by the temple of Bastet as an offering to the gods. It's believed the statue was created sometime between 323 and 330 BC, which means it's more than 2,300 years old.
"It is a representation of kindness, good feeling, protection and humanity," the ambassador said.
In recent years, Egypt has redoubled its efforts to repatriate stolen and smuggled artifacts from all around the world. Canadian officials say this is the third such artifact they have discovered and given back to Egypt. In December 2004, Canada returned a clay funerary figurine and in August 2010 it returned a sculpted head of a woman, carved in marble, that dated back to the first or second century BC.
Aidan Dodson, a professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol, says the artifact itself is unlikely to be extremely valuable, since small cat statues were mass produced in ancient times. Still, Dodson says it is crucial that illegally obtained artifacts are returned to their homelands.
"There isn't a lot of archeological significance, but their significance is more the fact that they were illegally obtained and emblematic of the international smuggling activity," Dodson said. "It needs to go back to Egypt because of what it is: a stolen, smuggled item."
How the cat itself was obtained and where exactly it originated is unclear. Experts say smaller, more portable artifacts like that are often hard to trace.
"We know they weren't legally exported, but exactly where they came from and whether they came directly from Egypt is difficult to know," Dodson said. "All we know is they weren't legally exported."
Egyptian officials estimate approximately 29,000 stolen antiquities have been returned over the last three or four years, but say tens of thousands more are still out there waiting to be found.
Shawn Graham, a professor of digital humanities at Carleton University in Ottawa, helped found a group working to end trafficking of items from pottery to human remains and antiquities. He says the internet and the rise of social media websites like Facebook and Instagram have "super-charged" efforts to sell and obtain stolen items.
"Private Facebook groups are a major marketplace for these items," he told CTV News. "Facebook brings together the people doing the looting and the people doing the selling. It essentially eliminates the middle man."
As far as the future of the cat, it will be shipped to Egypt sometime in the near future and hopefully put on display on the country's new Grand Egyptian Museum.
