A stolen4,500-year-old Egyptian relic that was to be included in a Christie’s auction last year was returned to the consulate yesterday and will soon head to Egypt, officials said.

The duck-shaped, alabaster vessel was last year spotted on Christie’s auction list by Interpol, which notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In October, investigators obtained a seizure warrant and Christie’s turned it over.

The consul general of Egypt to New York, Sherif El-Kholi, received the vessel in a ceremony early yesterday.

“Today our two countries send a message to those who mistakenly perceive cultural theft as a low-risk/high-return business,” the acting director of the ICE New York field office, Salvatore Dalessandro, said. “National artifacts and cultural treasures are not for sale to the highest bidder.”

The vessel and a similar piece were excavated in 1979 at the pyramid of Amenemhat III, the sixth ruler of Egypt’s 12th dynasty. An Egyptologist with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dieter Arnold, was the archaeologist who discovered them. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Looters appear to have gained access to a storeroom where the vessel was kept at the Egyptian Antiquities Inspectorate in the ensuing years.

Mr. Dalessandro would not divulge how Christie’s had come upon the duck. He said it was a consignment sale.

“After concluding that there were provenance issues, the item was withdrawn from the sale,” a spokeswoman for Christie’s, Bendetta Roux, said. “Christie’s adheres to all applicable laws with respect to cultural property and national patrimony, and will not sell any work of art that we know or have reason to believe has been stolen.”

The duck was excavated from a royal burial chamber at the pyramid, located in the city of Dahsur. It would have contained a portion of roast duck for the deceased to enjoy in the afterlife, officials said.

Egyptian authorities found the other duck excavated from the site at the gallery of Rupert Wace Ancient Art Limited in London, according to a statement from the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass. When shown that the artifact was illegally acquired he returned it to the French auction house, Etude Piasa, which returned it to the Egyptian government in Paris.