This 2,000-year-old Egyptian sarcophagus was found by U.S. law enforcement and was returned to Egypt in 2011.
Credit: Luis Martinez/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

About $50 million worth of artifacts and antiques were shipped from both Egypt and Turkey to the United States in 2016 — the highest annual value from each of those countries in at least 20 years, according to U.S. Census Bureau documents.

The artifacts, totaling about $100 million between the two countries, were imported "for consumption" and not for temporary display in a museum, the documents say. Most of the artifacts were shipped to New York City, where numerous antiquities dealers, auction houses and art galleries are based. It can be difficult to determine whether a shipment of artifacts was recently looted, law-enforcement officials told Live Science.

In addition, the actual resale value of the shipments may be higher, because the values seen in the documents are simply those that importers declared, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. Audits are occasionally conducted on shipments, but the spokesperson declined to say how often they occur. [See Photos of the Artifacts from Egypt and Turkey]