We have known that the King Tut Statue has been a very controversial one. There were protests held outside the auction house where the statue was being sold. Also, the Egyptian authorities attempted to halt the auction process as well. Despite all those protests and its controversy, the King Tut Statue has been sold for $6 Million at Christie’s Auction House as reported first by Artnet.
The details regarding who has bought the sculpture and unknown right now but is known that London’s Christie auction house has sold the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun for just short of $6 Million. This is in between calls to cancel the auction and repatriate the 3000-year-old artifact.
The small group of protestors that were gathered outside the auction house raised chants of “Egyptian history is not for sale.” and they were obviously against the Statue being sold at an auction. Also, Egyptian representatives based in London had written to UNESCO about the same as well.
Egyptian foreign ministry had requested that the items from Egypt in Christie’s auction be removed and they cannot be placed back until the auction house provides “valid ownership certificates” as proof.
While the controversy was brewing, Christie’s from London said that “[It] is hugely important to establish recent ownership and legal right to sell, which we have clearly done. We would not offer for sale any object where there was concern over ownership or export”. However, this has been questioned by critics as well.
On this controversy, Egypt’s former antiquities minister said that “We think [the sculpture] left Egypt after 1970 because in that time other artefacts were stolen from Karnak Temple, I don’t think Christie’s have the papers to show it left Egypt legally; it’s impossible”. However, we believe that the controversy will still be the same as it was even after the sale over the right of ownership of the statue.
