The golden coffin of priest Nedjemankh was put on display on Tuesday at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in the Egyptian capital Cairo following its repatriation from the United States.

The coffin was returned last week to Egyptian authorities from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art following an investigation which later determined the coffin was a stolen artifact.

Nedjemankh was a high priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef in the Ptolemaic Period about 2,000 years ago.

"I am very happy to have this piece back again in Egypt. We will know all the details about the theft later," Mostafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities said.

In 2011, the sarcophagus was smuggled by a multi-national trafficking ring out of Minya, in southern Egypt, following the nation’s political upheaval. It then went through the United Arab Emirates and Germany before finally ending up in France.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased the artifact from a Paris art dealer two years ago for nearly $4 million and became the centerpiece of an exhibition. It was removed in February following the realization that it had been stolen

The museum has since apologized to Egypt. U.S. investigators said the museum was given fake documents, including a forged 1971 Egyptian export license.