Today the tourism and antiquities police succeeded in retrieving four ancient Egyptian artefacts, two of which were reported missing from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir.

The criminals were caught red-handed.

Zahi Hawass, minister of state for antiquities affairs, assigned an archaeological committee headed by the Egyptian Museum Director, Tarek El-Awadi, to check on the authenticity of such pieces and whether they belong to the Egyptian museum.

Hawass told Ahram Online that the four bronze statutes date to the Late Period.

Two of them were from the Egyptian Museum that was looted during the January 25 Revolution. The statutes depict the god of prosperity, Osiris, and the other two feature the god Harpocrate, which represents the god Osiris in his childhood.

El-Awadi confirms that the other two are authentic items, but not from those on the list of the objects that are reported missing after the January Revolution. The committee is now investigating whether they are from any museum or archaeological site in Egypt.

One of the statues is 37.5cm tall depicting the god Osiris and the second is an 18cm statue of the god Horus when he was a child.

This brings the count of missing objects from the Egyptian museum to 31 objects out of 54 reported missing.