Egyptian authorities on Thursday said the priceless 3,000-year-old gold bracelet from the time of Pharaoh Amenemope, stolen last week from the country’s renowned Egyptian Museum, was melted down and sold for a little over Rs 3.53 lakh (approximately $4,000).
The ancient artefact, a gold band inlaid with lapis lazuli beads, dated back to the 21st Dynasty (1070–945 BC). It was due to be sent to Rome for the upcoming “Treasures of the Pharaohs” exhibition next month.
Egypt’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that a museum employee, who worked as a restoration specialist, was behind the theft.
The bracelet was taken on September 9 from a secure metal safe inside the museum’s conservation lab. The theft went unnoticed until last Saturday
during a routine inventory check.
Investigations led to the arrest of the employee and three alleged accomplices. Police said the employee worked with a silver trader in central Cairo to sell the bracelet. It was first sold to a gold dealer for 180,000 Egyptian pounds ($3,735), who then resold it to a worker at a gold foundry for 194,000 pounds ($4,025). The piece was melted down with other scrap gold, destroying the original form of the priceless artefact.
Security footage released by authorities showed what appeared to be the bracelet being exchanged for cash, then cut in half, though the video lacked the distinctive lapis lazuli seen in official photographs.
Experts say the loss is significant. Egyptologist Jean Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, who has worked in Tanis where the bracelet was found, called it “scientifically one of the most interesting” pieces.
Although simple in design, it was made from a special gold alloy meant to resist wear. To ancient Egyptians, gold symbolised the flesh of the gods, and lapis lazuli — imported from present-day Afghanistan — represented divine hair.
Under Egyptian law, stealing antiquities with intent to smuggle carries a possible life sentence and heavy fines. Damaging heritage items is also punishable by up to seven years in jail.
This theft adds to a list of high-profile cultural losses in Egypt. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, one of the oldest in the country, has suffered thefts in the past, including the mysterious 2010 disappearance of Van Gogh’s Poppy Flowers painting.
(With inputs from AFP)
