Egypt Says Stolen Pharoah's Bracelet Melted Down, Sold For $4,000
Egyptian police said on Thursday they arrested a museum employee and three alleged accomplices after a priceless ancient gold bracelet was stolen from Cairo's Egyptian Museum, sold for about $4,000 and then melted down.
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Egypt:
Egyptian authorities announced Thursday the arrest of a museum employee and three alleged accomplices following the theft of an ancient gold bracelet from Cairo's Egyptian Museum. Officials reported the priceless artifact was sold for approximately $4,000 before being melted down.
The gold bracelet, adorned with lapis lazuli beads and dating back approximately 3,000 years to Pharaoh Amenemope's reign during Egypt's 21st Dynasty (1070-945 BC), was discovered missing on Saturday by museum personnel, according to Egypt's interior ministry statement. The artifact had been secured in a locked metal safe within the museum's conservation laboratory.
According to the ministry, a restoration specialist employed at the museum stole the bracelet while working on September 9.
Police reported that a silver trader in central Cairo facilitated the sale of the artifact, first to a gold dealer for 180,000 Egyptian pounds ($3,735), who subsequently sold it to a gold foundry worker for 194,000 pounds ($4,025).
The ministry stated that the historical bracelet was then melted down with other scrap gold.
Authorities reported that the suspects were detained and have confessed to the crime.
The Egyptian interior ministry shared security camera footage apparently showing an individual receiving payment before cutting a gold bracelet in half. It remains unclear if this bracelet is the same historical artifact stolen from the museum.
Egyptian media had previously reported that the theft was discovered during inventory verification ahead of the upcoming "Treasures of the Pharaohs" exhibition scheduled in Rome next month.
Egyptologist Jean Guillaume Olette-Pelletier informed AFP that the bracelet was unearthed in Tanis, located in the eastern Nile delta, during archaeological excavations in King Psusennes I's tomb, where Pharaoh Amenemope had been reinterred after his original tomb was plundered.
Egypt's cultural institutions have previously experienced significant thefts.
Vincent van Gogh's painting "Poppy Flowers," valued at $55 million, was stolen from a Cairo museum in 1977, recovered ten years later, and stolen again in 2010. It remains unrecovered.
Earlier this month, an Egyptian man received a six-month prison sentence in the United States for smuggling hundreds of looted artifacts into the international market.
Following Egypt's 2011 revolution, looters exploited the resulting chaos to raid museums and archaeological sites, with thousands of stolen objects later appearing in private collections worldwide.