Smugglers Busted With 3,000 Year-Old Egyptian Artifact

We keep an eye on what US Customs and Border Patrol are doing these days, especially since a lot of drug trafficking and other crime ends up in our region.

But this one is kinda different.

  Customs and Border Patrol busts smugglers with 3,000-year-old artifact

Perhaps in a scene right out of the movie The Mummy,  Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Agents nailed some smugglers in Memphis, TN after they tried to sneak in what they said was a 100-year-old Egyptian artifact.

It was labeled as a 100-year-old stone sculpture, which apparently in the art world was permissible. It had been sent from a "private dealer" to a buyer in the U.S.

However, CBP said the proceedings looked suspicious and with the help from some art and history experts at the University of Memphis found out this was actually the lid to a jar that could be as much as 3,000 years old. According to CBP:

  "It is an Egyptian canopic jar lid of the funeral deity named Imsety. Canopic jars were used to hold the internal organs of mummies and Imsety specifically protected the deceased’s liver. The lid is likely from the Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, 1069 BC to 653 BC, making it potentially 3,000 years old."

Because of its age and nature, it falls under numerous international and US treaties and laws that prohibit the illegal recovery and sale of what are considered priceless historical items.

Homeland Security is now investigating where it came from, and how it happened to be transferred from an alleged seller to a buyer in the US.

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We're thinking you wouldn't want one of these things unless you want to end up as the guys did in The Mummy, who stole stuff from the Egyptian tomb and wound up being mummified by the bad guy himself!