Council plans to sell a £2 million Egyptian statue could be scuppered by a legal challenge from Lord Northampton.
In August last year, Northampton Borough Council revealed plans to sell the 4,000-year-old Sekhemka statue, which had been on display in the town’s museum until experts realised how valuable it was.
But after plans for the sale were announced, historians mounted a campaign against the move.
And now Lord Northampton, whose ancestor, The Second Marquis of Northampton donated the statue to the town in 1850, has threatened legal action to stop the sale.
A spokesman for Northampton Borough Council said: “We can confirm that we have been contacted by Lord Northampton’s legal team.
“As this is now a legal matter, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
It is believed an agreement signed by the council in 1880 states any items donated to the town by the Marquis should be “restored to the Marquis or his heirs in as good condition as it was received” if they are no longer on display.
Sekhemka was a high ranking Egyptian official who may have been a member of the Egyptian royal family.
His statue was made shortly after the Pyramids were built, in about 2,400BC.
The council has said that if the statue was put back on display, it would have to be guarded around the clock.
Officials from the Guildhall have also claimed it ‘doesn’t add anything to the heritage of the town’.
The authority has said that if a sale was allowed to go ahead, money would be used to expand the town centre’s museum and improve Delapre Abbey.