The federal government has taken the St. Louis Art Museum to court, trying to seize a 3,200-year-old Egyptian mummy mask. The United States Attorney sys the mask was stolen from Egypt before the museum paid half a million dollars to a New York art dealer in 1998. Four years ago, an Egyptian antiquities official claimed it had been stolen from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The St. Louis Art Museum had filed its own suit earlier claiming the statute of limitations had expired for government seizure.
