CAIRO, May 16 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian lawyers are likely to sue anAmerican museum for failing to return an ancient Egyptian maskbefore deadline, the official MENA news agency reported on Tuesday.

    Zahi Hawwas, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council ofAntiquities (SCA), was quoted as saying that the Saint Louis ArtMuseum of America did not hand over a Pharaonic era mask as thedeadline set by the SCA ended on Tuesday.

    Hawwas told a press conference that Egypt's public prosecutoroffice is to take legal measures against the American museum afterhaving given it an ultimatum to turn the mask over.

    The mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, which can be dated back over 3,000years ago to the 19th dynasty (1307-1196 BC) of Egypt's Pharaonicera, was stolen and smuggled illegally out of Egypt, said Hawwas.Hawwas explained that he had given the American museum relateddocuments showing that the burial mask had been sent to theEgyptian Museum in Cairo in 1959.

    The Saint Louis Art Museum in Missouri, however, disputed thatit had received nothing to support the claim that the mask wasstolen before the museum bought it in 1998 for some 500,000 U.S.dollars.

    Hawwas said that Egypt will also seek the Interpol's aid tohelp restore the mask, which depicts a young woman with inlaidglass eyes and a gold-coated face wearing a wig and holding awooden amulet in each hand.

    The mask was excavated by Egyptian Egyptologist Zakaria Goneimin the Saqqara area, some 25 km south of Cairo in 1952.Goneim had the mask registered and then put it at a nearbywarehouse, said MENA. Enditem