By AP/KWMU
Cairo, Egypt – Egypt's chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass is asking state attorneys in Egypt to sue the Saint Louis Art Museum to regain possession of a 3,200 year-old mask from the Pharaonic era that was allegedly stolen.
Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says he would also be writing to Interpol and the U.S. State Department asking for assistance in returning the mask to Egypt.
Saint Louis Art Museum director Brent Benjamin says the museum intends to keep the mask as it has received nothing to support the claim that the mask was stolen before it was obtained in 1998.