Dozens of mostly Egyptian objects from the 4th to 7th centuries AD which had been missing since the end of World War II have been unearthed and returned to a Berlin museum, officials said Monday.

The 44 pieces were identified as being part of the Bode Museum's collection of Byzantine art after being stored for decades in two boxes at Leipzig University's Egyptian Museum in eastern Germany.

They had been transported to the Soviet Union after World War II and were brought back to Germany in 1958 but got mixed up with objects from Leipzig and ended up there instead.

Hermann Parzinger, president of the Berlin state cultural authority, said in a written statement that the objects' return was a "great stroke of luck". They are on display at the Bode on Berlin's Museum Island until March 25.

Some of the objects, which include four late antiquity clay oil lamps from North Africa, will then go into the permanent exhibition.